(00:00:00) National Weather Service radar showing numerous rain showers continuing over the Southeastern portions of our region into West Central Wisconsin radar also indicating a few developing thunderstorms near La Crosse towards Prairie du Chien and extreme Western Wisconsin movement, if the precipitation Northeast at 35 miles an hour our forecast for the region today calls for rain to be to continue throughout much of the day over many parts of the region for the Twin Cities specifically variable cloudiness some sunshine and muggy conditions with a 60% chance of showers and thunderstorms highs today near 70 degrees in the Twin Cities. Mostly cloudy with a 50 percent chance of thunderstorms tonight in the Twin Cities with lows in the low to mid 50s then tomorrow mostly cloudy in the Twin Cities with a 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms highs in the upper 50s to the mid-60s, and I have managed to misplace my Forecast we'll see if we can't get that to you a little bit later looking at temperatures and conditions around the region at this hour Duluth cloudy 47 degrees in Rochester cloudy and 59 International Falls cloudy and 46. St. Cloud. Mostly sunny 52 degrees in the Fargo-Moorhead area 39 degrees Cloudy Skies prevailing there and in the Sioux Falls Area 63 degrees under partly sunny skies early in the Twin Cities cloudy skies and 54 degrees. Well nice day to stay inside. I guess with the weather being the way it is perhaps to play around with your home computer or a little bit or do a little computer shopping something like that. So Bob Potter is back to our microphones to lead our way through a discussion of Home computers. Yes. Thank you Mark Dale Archibald is in today. He is one of the area's Best Known computer writers having edited the monthly magazine computer user for some four years Dale has compiled some of the articles that Appeared in that magazine over the past several years into a brand new paperback book, which is called appropriately Dale Archibald's using computers, which is published by Archibald publishing and I get the feeling there's probably a relationship there down. There is a little relationship. Yeah using computers is full of helpful information both for those of you who are just thinking about buying a computer and for those of you who probably use one every day or close to it. What prompted you to put some of these articles together in a book deal. Well, I suppose every periodical writer looks forward to the day when he can put out a real book and not just something that comes out once a month or once a week. I thought the Articles were well founded in would teach people a lot about Computing if they were interested. So since I had the computers and I had the knowledge of the technology I decided just to put one together by myself. And what's the range of things you covered? Is it really from absolute beginners to experts? Yes we talked about There I wrote about telecommunications and I've written about very basic things the business use of computers and how you select word processing equipment touched on spreadsheets and little bit of everything just to give people an overview of what's going on. There's so much the changes in this field though, even from month to month. That isn't a book about computers almost inevitably going to be outdated. I think so. Yeah, but once people understand the foundation, you know, the basics of what's going on in the computer what makes a computer what it is, then you can begin to understand more about what's going on. That's one of the questions that prompted me to start the computer user in the first place was people telling me well, I'd like to know more about Computing but I don't know enough to ask intelligent questions and what I've always tried to do is give them enough information so they could start formulating those intelligent questions. Do you in this book explain what some of the common? Jargon is that we here Try to yeah, I try to Define it. We try every month in the computer user to explain what terms mean and what they stand for some of our readers get a little tired of it after they begin to understand it but there are always new people that are coming into the field and beginning to get interested. So, you know, if we do we're right if we don't were right, so it's about 20 minutes past eleven o'clock. If you have a question about computers for Dale Archibald today or welcome to give us a call in Minneapolis. St. Paul. The phone number is two two seven six thousand 2276 thousand and in other parts of the state toll-free one 800 600 to 900 700. If you're listening in one of the surrounding states, you can call us directly at area code six one two between the city's number two two seven six thousand. So whether your interest is as a rank beginner or whether you are an expert. I think they large ball might very well be able to take a crack at Question today what is new since last you were in probably about five six months ago or so. Well, of course IBM just came out with a couple more machines their little portable desktop publishing seems to be causing the big flurry in the market people using their computer equipment to come out with Publications without having to spend a lot of money on typesetting. This sort of thing is becoming very interesting to people I started user group on just that subject and we meet second Wednesday of the month at Art sign at 7 p.m. And first meeting we had 21 people second meeting. We had 55 people and I shudder to think how many will be at the third meeting. Well, that's how you put your book together isn't it with a desktop publishing system. It's sort of even before that. Yeah. We I would run the type out on my dot matrix printer and then just strip the type down on the Age to take out to the printers who would then print a hundred thousand copies of it, but this new desktop publishing equipment will allow you to actually compose and lay out your pages on your computer screen. So that what's printed out as an actual page not just the story is that you then have to use exacto knives and scissors or whatever. But what comes out is ready to go to the printer. Hmm. So that's that's new. We got those smaller discs now right three and a half inch discs are beginning to make inroads Macintosh has been using them since they were first introduced but now IBM's come out with them for their convertible and you know when IBM moves everybody pays attention, so does that mean if the other the larger ones are going to become Obsolete and unavailable or not? Well, that's everybody's conjecture. Now, you know the people that are really into the five. A half inch or five and a quarter inch deeply say well no, they won't ever be replaced and those who are interested in marketing something on three and a half. They say well are wonderful, and they will replace the five and a quarter personally. I think I would prefer three and a half inch discs because they are tougher you can take one of those when you're done working on it and put it in an envelope and mail it and if you did that with a five and 1/4 post office would have checked well that and it would just you know be demolished you can't do it if they're much more fragile than the three and a half inch plus the three and a half inch will store, you know twice the information on on the same on one disc. I'm going to ask you why but not until we get a couple of news on the other case do that. Hello your first go ahead. They'll Archibald is listening. (00:07:49) Well, my first introduction was when I was talking to a group of high Achievers sixth graders at Creekside school and the unit that they were approaching the time after my talk was how to talk to a computer. So they had hired gal from the University of Minnesota. And I knew the technician who set up what was sort of a flow chart that showed on a binomial system. How do you talk to computer? We went for a cup of coffee and when I got back I never caught up with these sixth graders who were so far ahead of me with their instructor that I was left in the bushes. The other aspect that intrigues me is if you're going to write a book at home, and then with this kind of equipment you were just discussing. You can rearrange paragraphs and make Corrections and even people will have programs that correct your spelling for you and I'd like to hear more on that. (00:09:01) All right, most of the word processing programs on the market will let you do that they range in price from $60 or less up depends on which machine you're using how extensive you want them some come with spelling Checkers built-in if it will check your spelling it won't check your style or anything. If you want to spell there thei R but you do it th ER e as long as it's spelled, right the computer doesn't care. It just sees the spelling depends on what sort of things that you're writing if you're looking for something with heavy indexing or footnoting. You should look for software that will do that for you if you want. Subscripts and superscripts, you should find software that will do that for you word processing software now is is so powerful in so many different ways that you can find something for almost every field including technical writing some of the mathematical symbols and things like this. Now, there's at least four packages. I would say that the could do that lots of strengths are I wonder if there is someday going to be a way of dealing with the they're they're kind of issue somehow a piece of software that could determine whether a word made sense in context in at least call your attention to it. So you could decide if you are. In fact, that was the way you wanted it to be. I thought I'm sure that there are a couple of style Checkers that are already on the market that will look at that and say well is this what you wanted to to say and as computers get more powerful and have more and more memory your software will begin to take advantage of it two two seven six thousand is the telephone number if you have a question about Computing for Dale Archibald author of the new book called Dale Archibald's using computers. And of course he is a longtime editor of the computer user magazine one 865 to 9700 is the toll-free line your next go ahead please. (00:11:03) Yes, I rather technical question. If I may I have an 8-bit machines CPM machine about four years old. It has a hard disk drive and an 8-inch cume floppy now use the the cube floppy and have for most of all the time of had the computer is purely a backup disk. I've been getting a lot of bad sector be daus errors when I try to use it for backup now and I wonder if there's anything I should particularly look at (00:11:30) you might check and see if there's something to check your drive speed or drive alignment something like that. You can find these for many of the different machines. I don't know CPM products that well, but I'd imagine there is something that could check that for you. Generally the The heads on those are a pharaoh ceramic rather than a an iron so you don't have to worry about demagnetizing. You might also consider cleaning the heads. You can buy head cleaning kits. I wanted to ask a little bit about the typical care and feeding of computer equipment. How important is cleaning the heads. How often should you do it? What are some of the basics to watch for starting at the power cord? There's surges of power that will come through the power line and can affect your equipment. So they have things called surge suppressors. There's radio frequency interference. I talked to one gentleman whose computer was in the st. Paul police department offices, and he was having problems and I said, well could the radio signals be coming through and bothering your equipment. He said he hadn't thought of that that would be RFI, then there's static electricity, which is probably one of the worst. Things for home computers. It's just lightning on a small scale and you can buy things that will allow you to ground yourself out so that it dissipates a charge rather than seeing the nice little spark leap out of your finger and start eroding away your chips, which does happen. Hmm their head cleaning kits that you can buy and these instead of using a regular mylar floppy disk with iron oxide on it. These would be something like a nonwoven fabric 3M for example has that and you sprinkle a few drops of a cleaner on it. And then you run that just as you would a disc and that cleans the any particles of iron oxide that have gotten onto your disk you do that, you know, depending on how often you use your equipment how much you use your equipment weekly monthly. Hmm. But you shouldn't just wait until something goes wrong before doing that. I suppose now, you should do it fairly regularly when they're pretty rugged equipment. For the most part I haven't really had that many problems. But when you do it cost you would imagine so I would imagine so 29 minutes past the hour another listener has a question. Hello. You're on the air. (00:13:59) Go ahead, please. I'm very new at this computer business. I've taken a couple of courses and played around with a quite a number of computers. Now my use would be course word processing. I'm a farmer or out in the farm area at least and spreadsheets, but my question right now as I see the computer that I really like is one called the Amiga gone so far, but I'm concerned because recently I've seen these big reductions 500 dollar reduction in price. So on could could your guests there say something about the what's happened to commodore. Mica is it still a viable company or if I get one is something going to happen and I'm going to be out in the cold after a while. (00:14:56) Well, I I can't give you a definitive answer Commodores Amiga is a fantastic piece of Machinery. I used one here a few months ago right after it came out and it's impressive. It's a very impressive piece of equipment at the same time Atari came out with its ST, which is also a pretty impressive piece of equipment and they're both striving for the same Market. The computer industry is in a state of flux Commodore right now is involved with its banks trying to to keep going they had tremendous success with her Commodore 64 this industry if you turn your back for a second things change and they're still operating still making a profit still selling equipment. Whether any of these companies will be around in six months or a year. It's very tough to tell because this industry isn't like an industry that has a huge base of strength that's been there for years, you know, everybody needs a automobile or something and they sell millions of them every year. This is still a fledgling industry. It's not ten years old yet. And there's a lot of changes that go on it but I think one thing about buying equipment that even if the company doesn't last or changes somehow with as many thousands and hundred thousands of these machines is are out there. They're all repairable. They're all made out of Fairly standard parts. And I don't think that you need to worry. Just you know, if a company goes down the tubes. I don't think that would disturb your equipment speaking of the health of various manufacturers. How about Apple? They certainly have had their ups and downs over the years. Well this this year, it's an up. The desktop publishing area is something that they are right on top of because they're macintoshes is a very qualified Graphics machine and since it's only black and white that's all you need in publishing. If you want color you can use art for something and I guess this last quarter of theirs they were making a lot of money IBM was down so changes very very rapidly. And this is a Real Fashion oriented business at times talking with Dale Archibald about various aspects of using computers. That's the name of his new book. You have a question. We have a couple of lines open to to 76 thousand in Minneapolis st. Paul to to 76 thousand. Everybody thinks there's no way they can possibly get in because the Lions get all jammed up, but believe it or not. You probably could get through a two two seven six thousand in other parts of the state 1-800-669-9133 few people who believe when I said go ahead you're next. Go ahead. (00:17:48) Oh, how do you do? My name is Herman Shelton and Iona IBM PC with 256 k and a couple of 360k floppy disk drives, but I don't have a graphics card in it yet. I see a couple of people have been buying Max and the you know with that Max and they have the mouse all that other things. That was when he what would it take to make an IBM PC operate similar to a Mac. Well, which would you have to add on to it to make it work? (00:18:16) Well, I'm not real familiar with the Macintosh what the gentleman was talking about is some of the elements that will increase the strength of the machine and give it more capabilities a mouse is just a way to move the cursor around by hand as you move on a table than the cursor on the screen moves back and forth. I think what you would need for that would be something like the enhanced Graphics adapter. For example, which gives you better graphics capability on the screen because that's that's the thing about the Mac. The Mac has very very high resolution graphics and the EGA or something like that. Whether it's a Hercules graphics card with good resolution and some sort of a Adapter so that you can connect a mouse up to it would give you a pretty pretty good equipment. I think a lot of people who are going to go into the desktop publishing area where you need that high graphics capability. I'm trying to learn more about the EG a card myself because it it's if you buy a IBM PC you get no graphics. Circuit board with it. You have to buy one for it. And this apparently there are two levels. There's just a standard graphics and an enhanced Graphics which gives you better color and higher resolution. I think if you wanted to approximate approximate a Mac, you should check out the EGA. Here's another caller with a question. Hi Dale is listening. (00:19:45) Hi. I'd like to go back and think about that question that the second last caller called Anna bock and that is a protecting one's investment in software when you are relatively small user who maybe needs not much more than a word process simple spreadsheets. It may be simple data file management. It would seem to me that the cp/m operating system offers everything that a person wants because it's quote obsolete. It's and there no changes its it's stable. A lot of the products that are in there have been around for years and will probably be around for years. Um, what would you say to the proposition that a person who knew that that CPM still offers a viable alternative to people need simple robust inexpensive computing power in their homes their small business. (00:20:37) Sure. I'd vote for that. The only thing that CPM does an offer that some of your other computer operating systems offer. This is what makes the computer deal with information except at the store it certain ways CPM has been around for years. And if you're uses for words and numbers and fast CPM is quite good if you have any need for graphics though, so far CPM has never been adapted to the high graphics use I suppose it could be but if you're looking for just powerful low-cost word and number crunching like a CPM machine would be fine. What are those letters mean CPM I've seen about three or four different definitions of EP / M and I wanted that I've seen I think is control program for the monitor. This was one of the first operating systems that came out and digital research came out with it back in about nineteen 676 or so and at the time digital research was in an Intergalactic to digital research and later. They scaled their name down just for this plant little bit more realistic may be alright 23 minutes before noon. Hello. You're on the air. (00:21:58) Oh, yes. So I have IBM XT with a new printer and I have a real problem with extra characters coming in on multi-page documents and example the extra characters of the extra Line Feed and sometimes I get bold-faced copy when I don't enter that command wondering what kind of a problem might have (00:22:19) how long is your cable from your computer? Well, it could be you're getting some Furious signals in from radio frequency interference or something like that. And if your cable is is long or it's not connected up nice and tight or it isn't shielded then it's coming through and it's giving the printer seeing something come through and it's just interpreting that as a signal of some sort. You might want to try and make sure that you're plugged in quite well some of it might depend on you the word processing program that you're using could be static radio frequency interference. I would check your cables first how long a cable would you say is too long? It depends if it's a very well shielded cable, you can probably have one 15 20 feet long I suppose but generally I'd say, you know, maximum six seven feet something. Here's another listener. Go ahead and Dale is listening. (00:23:13) Yes. I was just wondering Is what an apple 2E be a good investment for a very small business. I have been told because it just came up that if not compatible with other software. (00:23:31) The issue of compatibility really if you have a CPM machine that operating system isn't compatible with Apple's operating system, which isn't compatible with IBM's operating system that really doesn't matter if the software that you're interested in is available for the equipment. They're probably don't know 20 or 30,000 different pieces of software that are available for the Apple. So you could find every type of software that you wanted for it without any problem. The limitations of the equipment might be the size of the files that you could cope with depends on what sort of work you're going to try and do the apple is not as fast as an IBM PC in some things and other things it's just as fast since it's a an 8-bit machine it can only access 64,000 some characters if you're going to Working with files that are huge then you'd want a bigger machine that can access more. The Apple II is is a fine machine and for a very small business, it would be a perfectly good talking with Dale Archibald today about computers. His new book is called using computers. How is it available if people interested so far it's available through mail order and then I have it at the be Dalton software Etc stores in the Twin Cities and the Sailor software first. I'm going to be signing autographs at software Etc at Southdale next Saturday from 12:00 to 2:00. And then at Ridgedale from 3 to 5. Hmm sounds like it'd be an interesting afternoon for you should be fun using computers is the title of the book Dale is also the editor of computer user magazine. Go ahead, please you're next. What's your (00:25:16) question? Thank you. I'm calling from st. Cloud. Leading Edge model B with a 20 meg hard drive and 640 Ram the color monitor and I've got it hooked up to a cannon laser printer model one. All right and having two problems one is I'm having trouble getting a background color up in the setup program and I've got framework to installed on the hard disk. Okay, and I'm having trouble. I'm not sure which program to use from the setup menu. It gives you quite a few options. I've tried the HP Laser that doesn't seem to be the one the the Canon printer is a is a 6300 Diablo 6300 M and that seems to be the best. Do you have any suggestions about the printer and the cover the background color for the (00:26:16) monitor? Well, I've been using framework myself framework to here lately myself and it's a fantastic program, but I don't use color. I'm straight to monochrome person. I guess you could call Ashton Tate's support line and they might be able to tell you exactly how to do it. They helped me install mine. There's there is an installation section in the program that you might want to go through that again. See if there isn't some way to set your color preferences and set some the criteria the parameters on your printer, but they would probably be able to give you a lot better information because they're more familiar with that particular piece of software than I am 17 minutes before 12. Noon. Here is another listener. Hello, they'll Archibald is listening. (00:27:10) Good morning. I have an apple 2E a Jew key 6100 daily Daisy wheel printer and use the screenwriter word processing processing program. When I print out a file I get the letter K printed in the upper left-hand corner of the file. How can I get rid of that? Letter k (00:27:28) letter k in the upper left hand? Corner. I'm trying to remember I use screenwriter for a few months and on an apple and I'm I never had that problem but then I you know the way that we do it at the computer user. We just dump all our files right into typesetting machine. So seldom ever do anything on paper. I wonder if it's a control character something that is a line feed or you know form feed in there and it's just printing out accidentally perhaps on your printer, you know on another print on another Daisy wheel printer. It made have a different character therefore. A certain point and it may be hitting that instead but I really don't know how you would get the K off of that. I had to play with it myself just to see this these last two questions kind of bring up an interesting General point, which you might want to talk about a bit and that is the user groups. I would think that these kinds of questions might be addressed by the various groups which get together to have the same kind of equipment maybe people have the same problems or different problems and they can share their experiences. How do those things work user group is made up of people who own the same brand of equipment and thanks for reminding me of them because I usually give them a lot of support because they certainly support the people who use it. There is an Apple user group in the Twin Cities. He published their own magazine. There is IBM User Group are user groups for almost every brand of machine and now they seem to be moving into the software area so that there's a Lotus 1-2-3 use For example now the desktop publishing is not a piece of software, but it's a part of computing that that I'm interested in that we started and generally people get together and they just hold each other's hands and try and answer this type of question with 20,000 pieces of software for the apple. And who knows how many for the IBM, you know, you can understand the concept and the basics on much of it, but there are always going to be things when you get a particular combination of computer and printer and software. Nobody can know it all sure and you get an unwanted letter K. What do you do? Yeah tough question 15 minutes before noon. Let's take your call next. Hello. (00:29:54) Hello. I'm calling from Moorhead and I'm working with a couple of Apple to he's 128k one enhanced in one hand and I'm a big user of Apple works, but I'm running up against the 55k file limitation. So I know that I need to explain. And my ram memory and I also need to expand my storage for the storage and thinking of getting a cider but I'm confused about room cards. We've got switched cards and catch cards and then Ram Works cards and so on and I've also heard that you can buy the tape assist Ram card for like around a hundred and thirty-five hundred and fifty dollars an input on memory expander chips instead of buying the one megabyte cards, but comments you have on (00:30:44) that. Well ram ram cards are a way to expand the memory inside your equipment The Cider that the lady was talking about is a hard disk that use used for mass storage with the Apple by using these random cards. It expands the amount of memory that you have accessible to the 8-Bit chip the 6502 in the Apple normally can't give you any more than a hundred twenty-eight. Because of the way that they're changing the technology so rapidly now, they can put a circuit board into it that will give you a million or two million locations in memory that you can use that you can access. I used a ram card in. An Apple 2 plus with CPM and this would actually take over the activity of the computer and it had his own memory. It became another computer inside the apple and it operated on a different operating system which was much faster and you could use that memory to store data to use it as a disk instead of a physical mechanical floppy disk, you'd use RAM memory as your disk, which is 10 times faster or more. There's so much of that that's coming out. I would read the Magazine's I would check with your user group to see what they say and how much they like it. We've had articles on it here in the past two or three months and we'll continue looking at the Apple environment to see some of these new things that are coming up. How much can be held in a memory? I noticed that your book here is about a hundred and fifty Pages. How many discs did this take? Well, I have a 20 million character hard disk. So okay, so that book is a hundred sixty Pages. It took steel about 360 K 360,000 characters in the computer. Some of that was for formatting commands things like this the compact IBM PC the IBM compatibles because of the way they're designed their limit now is 640 thousand characters the Apple the early Ataris things like this their capacity was Sixty-four thousand characters or through a method called Bank switching. They could go to a hundred twenty eight thousand be like looking at the pages of a book you look at the left hand page first and the right hand and Skip back and forth as you need to find information and that would be Bank switching but now the new Atari St. 1040s T that will access a million areas in memory. So and some of the new circuit boards that are coming out the new Ram cards and things like this to eg a card or I'm sorry. It's expanded memory systems EMS, I guess one megabyte two megabyte for Megabyte eight. Megabyte all-in-one computer using yeah sky's the limit, I guess mmm, but 10 minutes before twelve and your next day Archibald's listening. What's your question? (00:33:59) I have a compound question one is I do not know anything about computers. I just know that they exist in the other question is was alluded to a little bit earlier about user groups and your specific User Group. How does one find out about you know, the various, you know seminars that are available or user groups for someone who's just a you know, a novitiate in the area. In other final question is I hear that they have computer systems where like people have will say visual handicaps are learning handicapped. They can speak in the computer and the computer actually responds to voice instructions. Is this correct sir? And thank you very much. And I think it's real fine program. (00:34:40) Well, thank you. As for the user groups the computer user from the very first issue our first little eight-page issue. We started listing the user group meetings. And today we probably have 40 to 50 user groups listed every issue and we're about the only place in the Twin Cities. Is that has that when we do list some of the user groups that meet in other areas like Saint Cloud and places like that because although we're a Twin Cities publication for the most part. We try and serve the whole state. Or if you are out State, you might check it your stores the computer stores that you're dealing with and find out if there are user groups in your area that meet for a particular machine. You don't have to buy anything. You don't have to be an owner. It's a good way to go in and just learn what these people think of their equipment because these people in user groups aren't generally trying to sell you anything. They're going to complain about what they don't like and and tell you what they did like as for your second question on voice and data entry through voice that is getting more and more possible all of the time there's equipment on the market that you can speak into and you can order the computer to do certain things. That's pretty easy because all the computer has to do is hear use learn how your voice is set up to say catalog for example Directory and then when you say directory it recognizes your voice and that word means run a directory of what's on the disk. But as your commands get more and more complicated you begin using sentences and compound sentences. The computer only has so much memory and it has to figure out you know, what does this person mean for simple commands is already there. You can already do a great deal with that. But if you want to be able to just talk to it and say will you call Charlie Jones for me? That'll be a few years. Yeah, right Call Charlie Jones and have more two pizzas. Right will these machines that are voice actuated respond to anyone's Voice or just the one that they're set up for? Well I all you have to do is just adapt them to your voice. I would think because everybody's voice is different. You have a very mellifluous voice and I have a sort of a high voice and it would have to be able to recognize the frequencies and the way that we speak. The the amount of time it would take us to say the same word computers have no brains and they don't have any flexibility at all. They have to have everything done within their parameters. You know, they always do what you say. Not what you mean. Here's another listener with a question. Go ahead Dale is listening. (00:37:35) Yeah, good afternoon. Hello. I wanted to confirm some of the comments made by the gentleman with the IBM Pro Rider that was producing additional characters. Mmm. I have had the same experience as a matter of fact in a trying to print out a 1000 address labels out of an address file the pro Rider continually got itself into trouble. I'd like to nips on onto the end of the same cable with the power supply from the same power source burn it out the Thousand address labels without a hitch of any kind. I have a feeling that that Pro Rider is very susceptible to extremist signals. Mmm. (00:38:10) Well, thanks for calling that's good information. You know, that's the thing about a user group. I mean this Bob Potter's user group of the air. Well, that's good the we can help folks along in that fashion six minutes before twelve o'clock and we'll take another caller. Hello. You're on the air. (00:38:26) Hi. Yeah, I'm contemplating a Macintosh for personal publishing and I'm wondering about the future PostScript. That's the independent Graphics page description language. It's been accepted by Wang and bi deck and I'm wondering if that's indicative of the future Graphics in computers. And secondly, we have a mini at our office that was supposed to download into an IBM for data management. Can I get third party interfaces to do the same thing with a Macintosh special purchase it I'll hang up. Thanks (00:38:54) boy. Well, I think PostScript PostScript is is an actual language that is like a computer language like basic or fourth or something like that that allows you to lay your pages out and then print them it's called a page description language and it and Inter press from Xerox are the Hottest languages for that market going on and I think the PostScript they're selling books on PostScript in the book stores like crazy. I think that's got a very strong future because what you can do is lay out a page on a Macintosh and then take your disc down to the typesetter plug it in the typesetting equipment and it comes out you don't have to do any key lining. You don't have to do anything else. Just print it out on your typesetting equipment and then take it over to the to the printer to have him or her publish a hundred thousand copies of whatever you want to do as for the many interface. We're going to have a article in our next issue on the micro to Mainframe, which is the sort of thing that the gentleman was talking about. How do you connect small computers to Big computers? And he might be interested in looking at that. We do it ourselves at the office by dumping files from our Go equipment into a typesetting machine, which is the same sort of computer that everybody else is using it's just not it doesn't Process Equipment just comes out with type but the idea of being able to connect the equipment to interface the equipment that's getting more and more important and more and more. People are trying to learn how to do that. Very thorny question right now talking with Dale Archibald about computers enter of computer user magazine and author and publisher of a new book called using computers, which is a compilation of some of the best articles that have appeared from the magazine over the years. We have a number of lines open now to 276 thousand we cleared away some of those collars in their questions and so we might have room for you now two two seven six thousand in the Twin Cities and elsewhere within the state of Minnesota 1-800-662-2386 right to get those of you from outside the Twin Cities area on immediately because at 12 noon, you will have an opportunity to listen to some music programming while we continue with Dale on ksjn. Ksjn am in the Twin Cities. So your next go ahead, please. (00:41:20) Honey, I've got a question about program length. That is I'm using a IBM PC with 256 K memory turbo Pascal compiler to write a program in Pascal. Mmm. I understand that this compiler will handle programs that are 64k in length. Hmm, and this program is going to exceed that by perhaps that that one's over. Mmm. I'm wondering what to do when I get to the point where I need where I want to continue writing the program, but the compiler will take it all. (00:41:57) That's one of the problems with some of the languages the IBM PC will only allow programs up to 64 thousand characters in length. I think that they have been making some some changes on that but I'm not a programmer. I use the equipment to write with and to learn about not to program you might want to check User Group. You might want to check your store or you might want to call the company that came out with turbo Pascal and ask them if there's a way around it. They might be able to refer you to one of the more technical magazines byte magazine for example is always carrying articles about that. There's so much information coming out now, it's just a matter of finding out where it is and going out and getting it. All right. We'll take you next time. You're on the air. (00:42:43) Yes. Hello. I'm calling from Virginia Minnesota and I'm using a compact portable and I have trouble with the screen is so small. Hmm, and I was wondering what type of monitor would you recommend for? Compact portable that it could be used with the compact. Thank you. (00:43:01) Well it it's almost up to you you can buy a practically any type of monitoring and plug it into it to use. I view the problem with the compact is if you're going to do that the way that it's structured you have to lay the case out of your way so that you can have your your screen where you want it so that you can easily see it but I've used Amber monitors green monitors. You can have any size monitor that you want. You can use color monitors with it. If you like. It's just the way that it's designed the cable to the keyboard is short so you have to sort of plus around with it until you get a comfortable. We have only about a minute left less than a minute before the FM Network goes over to music programming and so I want to ask you very quickly daling case anybody else remembers? I was going to follow up on the question of why the three and a half four. Every size inch disc is can hold more than the larger one the 5-inch one. It's the way that they're manufactured the density of the iron oxides on the mylar surface can be more carefully controlled the because the surface is smaller. The heads can be smaller and it can move in much smaller increments. It's amazing what they can do with this miniaturization. Now, they'll Archibald editor of computer user magazine and author of the new book using computers is our studio guests and will continue with him for a while on ksjn am in the Twin Cities weekend is made possible by economics laboratory products and services for household institutional and Industrial Cleaning worldwide. It's 12 noon. And here is our next listener. Hello. You're on the (00:44:44) air. Hi. I'm calling from Winona Minnesota. I have an apple 2E hooked up to a image writer printer and occasionally. I have a problem with the printer not communicating with the computer or vice versa because I get a printout that nothing but gibberish it runs a couple of lines of exclamation points and question marks across the paper and sometimes if I shut off if I store what I have composed with the writing program that I use then the turn off the machine and turn it back on again, and then the printer will accept the messages from computer give me suggestions. (00:45:24) Boy, that's that's a tough one again. You you know could be some sort of signal that's coming into the equipment and giving you the wrong information. It could be the way that you're you know, if you're trying to print out before you store and then save it to you know, it could depend on your word processing equipment. There's so many things that this equipment is very good, but it's also real fragile at times and if it gets the wrong signal that can that can throw it off could also I'm not familiar with the image writer too much. But if it has a buffer that is an area of memory that when you're working the buffer gets stored with garbage or electrical pulse turning it on and off at the wrong time could put garbage in it that garbage will be printed out. Okay, two minutes past noon. And your next hello. What's your question for Dale? (00:46:20) I am very interested in computers. I know they exist but I've been told that I'm not smart enough to operate a computer and I would like to hear his comments, please. (00:46:36) Well anyone who's willing to sit down and take the time to learn step by step what you have to do to operate the equipment can operate the equipment. You know, it's not as if you have to have a college degree or anything else anybody can can operate a computer if they're willing to sit down and learn exactly step-by-step what they have to do to make the computer do what they wanted to do. There isn't anything exotic or esoteric about a computer. It's like, you know, making a necklace you have to make sure each bead is in place before you stick the Not you can't skip beads with a computer. But any any person who wants to can take the time to learn those things, then they can operate the equipment and it seems to me another important question you ask is what are you going to do with the computer? Why do you want to use it? Why bother to learn it? What can it do for you? And I think maybe people have gotten over the notion that computer in the home is going to solve all the world's problems and it'll be useful for every conceivable tasks Under the Sun. There are some you know some limits to the mark there. Well, there are there are very good for a lot of different things, but they're certainly not a Panacea if you want one for entertainment. They're great fun. If you want one for writing their Splendid, if you want one to turn all the lights off and your house at certain times phooey go out and buy something cheaper and use the computer for something else, you know, you don't want to use a computer as a dedicated on/off switch for particular things. I'm struck by the fact that it's just since I was here last time the questions you probably notice Bob they've gotten a lot more technical people have learned a lot more. They've gotten a lot more involved, you know now and they understand their equipment to a great part. They understand that well, you know, I've got this equipment with a hard disk drive and I'm going to go up to a ram disk, you know in six months ago people were saying well, you know, their questions were less in-depth than they are today. So they're learning very fast, you know, the public is seeing that this isn't something that's scary that is just a machine that they can learn to use and use for whatever they want to use it for and they're getting very sophisticated. I'm scared. Well as in most cases the the listeners are far ahead of the host of the program. I'll tell you that let's take another caller. Hello. You're on the air. (00:49:04) Hello, man. Yeah Dale and some of the magazines are supposing the other magazines to I've seen increasing. Ads for something called a stripper which allows you to input program with an optical reader and print out (00:49:22) the the cousin machine caues Ein. Yeah. Okay. Yeah (00:49:28) the adven increasing so I assume that they've been developed more and more and that their begin to move. What's your estimate of this gimmick or is it is it something more than just a (00:49:38) gimmick? It's really, you know, the classical case of if there are enough of them on the market people will support it. But until they support it through won't be enough of them on the market. This this stripper is a machine that can read Optical characters that are printed in a magazine in a newspaper or whatever. So for example, instead of your typing in a long program, you can take this gadget which sells for about $200 and you take the pages of the magazine that that program was printed in and it's a long strip about nine. Witches or eight inches long and maybe five eighths of an inch wide and you stick it in this stripper and it reads that and it enters that program into your computer. You don't have to type it you could use it for bibliographies. You could use it for anything that people don't want to sit there and type but they want to have it at your fingertips all the time. A magazine comes out of computer magazines such as bite for example instead of you're having to keep all the Magazine's neatly organized and you know some slip of paper that's tells you what's in those you can tear that page out. Plug it in the stripper and it's in your computer so that you know a year later you're trying to remember where you read something on database managers. For example, you just call it up your database manager on your computer. And there it is. It's been input by the stripper. So, you know holds a lot of potential but will a market be big enough to support it. I am seeing a lot of ads to I hope it makes it I think it's a great idea the creativity that's expressed in this field is just amazing as I sit here and listen to you talk about all of these things fascinating. Here's another listener. Go ahead. You're on the air. (00:51:26) Yes, I have a question. That might be slightly beyond what you're capable of responding to but I've got a several terminal programs in one program that I liked for. Its various features has an auto dial on it that apparently was some exchanges if it it will give me a signal that it's made a connection even though the line is busy and it will do that continuously with some numbers and it works fine on other numbers which appear to be on different exchanges are there different methods used in these terminal programs and are the impulses are signals that are sent out by different exchanges likely to be different (00:52:07) well. If you consider that the telephone company's been installing telephone exchanges for probably a hundred years. Now, a lot of them are using older switching equipment and mechanical switches and not digital equipment. So I'm sure that there's a bunch of varying levels of data that come in particularly if you're dialing at higher speeds if you have well if you're trying to send data then the switching could cause you problems but to just dial an exchange and get that sort of signal. You should check with the telephone company and ask them why you're getting that sort of signal because I've never had that problem and I use telecommunications constantly, you know, we do that all the time and call all over the place. We have something like a hundred and fifty different bbs's on them the market. Now one thing that that might be kicking you off is if you have call waiting on your telephone line that you're dialing out and a call comes in while you're dialing out on call waiting that beep of the call waiting on your line will disconnect the modem the modem needs a constant flow of sound through the line. And if it gets that be Pat thinks it's lost the connection BBS means what bulletin board Community computer bulletin boards systems when we started off there were about seven of them in the first issue of computer user. Now, there's about a hundred and fifty or what kinds of things can you find out by dialing these things up. Oh, there's a variety of different kinds I Back in one on a bulletin board called Terminal Station and they have a special room. That's just a section of the bulletin board that set aside for a particular subject. And this one is computer abuser. So whenever I want to be abused I call that that bulletin board and check into that particular room and people leave messages for me and some of them are nice and some of them aren't it's a lot of fun. I enjoy it. Okay about ten minutes past the are hello. You're on the (00:54:10) air. Hi. I've got a number of questions and I'll try and make them real quick here. But first of all, I'm I have a PC Junior and I've put a rake or second disk drive on and it's now got 512 K and I'm wondering why use writing assistant the IBM writing assistant and that supposedly has a spell checker in it, but I was looking at the Webster spell checker and or spelling checking Pro program, and I was wondering For the standard kind of just everyday letter writing. Do you really need that much power is as the Webster's has or is it just nice to have it in reserve another question I have is when I've I've got a surge protector that I'm using right now, but I've also heard that if like the my printer and the computer and number of other things are all plugged into that surge protector and I've heard that there is online interference. If I'm using the printer, I will get interference back through the surge protector into the computer. Should I put another protector on in between the current surge protector and the computer itself? And let's see. Oh, could you discuss a little bit the difference between the asynchronous and synchronous? Just exactly what does that mean? And what does it mean for me as a computer (00:55:38) user? Okay, that's a nice list of things there. Okay. Let me start at the first one was about the spelling checker the Webster spelling checker one problem that you might have. I don't know how the your text Files come out of the display writer. But if they don't come out in an ASCII file, I don't know whether that would even work on it. You might have to change your files to an ASCII text file, which is just a you know, sort of a vanilla way that articles are stored or letters of stored. If Webster's can read that document. If if you're not doing technical things, if you're not doing things that are you know, you're using the language squeezing everything out of it that you can you know, why spend the money if you do feel that you need that sort of power. Certainly by and I've been thinking about buying a spelling checker for myself not for my own spelling so much because im a champion speller. But but for I get articles in from writers and you know, a lot of times just in the transmission, they're all Champions spellers to but in the transmission sometimes characters get switched around that's how it happens. All right. Yeah and running it through a spelling checker. I can find those faster than I could just reading through it and editing it the way I normally do. I mean I would hopefully find them all anyway, but it's easier to do that. Now the second question had to do with something about a surge protector doesn't need a second. Okay between the mocking one I seem to remember that if You put when you plug your printer in you plug it in after in the circuit after your computer's plugged in so that when you are turning the printer on and off that surge doesn't go through the computer circuit. It only goes through its own circuit, which you know, you'd have to look at the instructions that come with it. If it's a fairly expensive surge suppressor. You shouldn't have that many problems because I'm you know, I've got a little for circuit surge suppressor and I've got a hard disk on it and I've got the printer and I got a modem and you know, I turn them all off and on all the time and I haven't had that many problems with him as for a synchronous and asynchronous synchronous is for Mainframe connections, when the machines have to be timed the transmission of data between two machines must be perfectly timed. So they're synchronized their synchronous, but when you type into a A bulletin board system, for example or you're chatting with somebody else over a telephone line. You're not going to type every character dot dot dot dot dot dot you're going to slow down and think and and you can't type with that sort of synchronization. That's a synchronous asynchronous is fine for most uses synchronous is mainly for data transmission, especially to mainframes. Okay, let's take another listener. Hello. You're on the air. (00:58:45) Yes, sir. Okay. I have a comment about the fellow had trouble with his long program in past in a pascal compiler. Great many languages have chain or link commands that you can use to break. You can break up your program into two smaller pieces and compile them separately. Then when you run them you use the chain or link command the back together again. He should look for those in his in the index of his user manual. (00:59:11) Oh super (00:59:13) I have a question about the April computer user. I haven't been able to find it and I in any of these places Well, I usually pick it up and I was wondering if the tub yet. (00:59:22) Oh April's been out since the 1st of April. Yeah, but it was such a good cover. It was on hard disks and headed Splendid graphic on the cover has been being picked up very fast. We will be out with May next Thursday and that will be about voice and data Communications and Telecommunications and we have a devilishly funny cover on that one too and do something about those covers Taylor. I wonder do you send them to the libraries to the Hamilton Library? Yeah, we have we should have all of the libraries on our list and then we distribute, you know, 65,000 copies through some 400 racks in the Twin Cities every month, but the paper is very popular. I'm very proud to say and people seem to pick them up right and left and they'll go through six seven eight hundred or more in one Rack in a month. We have to listeners left and let's get through. Very quickly because we're almost out of time. Hello. You're on the air. (01:00:22) How close are we to having a system where information from any printed page can be fed directly into the memory of computers without being typed in (01:00:33) about seven thousand dollars or less. They have scanners out. There's the data copy scanner that you can program to read any sort of typeface that's out there. So it doesn't have to be just an OCR typeface or anything like that it can you can teach the computer through software. What a character looks like. So even if you had a Nino 1917 Underwood, which is what I learned to type on you can teach it to read that so it's available and they're down to I think there's a d e St machine. That's 1995. But I had a call here several months ago from a gentleman who had just that probably had tons of files wanted to get them into the computer didn't want to type them and that's when I start keeping an eye on it to data copy. In is is the one that I'm familiar with. I think smithsonian's using that one. All right, and our final caller. Hello. You're on the air with deal. (01:01:27) Okay. Yeah, I just like to ask if you could recommend a good book on dos operating system. I think I've got an IBM and and I'm having a little trouble with that and the other is a question for you. Mr. Potter and that is I'd like to see if you could perhaps I also listen to sound money and perhaps do something on investment analysis or we're using a computer. (01:01:49) Okay. Well, I can answer that the dice question. I use one by Van Wolverton. It's a Microsoft book. And since Microsoft is the company that came out with the Microsoft operating system. I would get that one. Okay, and I can tell you sir that we did a program with somebody who the publisher of early editor of a magazine or a newsletter called computerized investing. We did that probably in October or November. Last year, it's a subject that we probably will bring back again sometime and I thank you for the suggestion and Dale. Thank you for coming in. Well, thanks for asking him a very very interesting and informative our Dale Archibald is the editor of computer user magazine, which is distributed free around the Twin Cities area. And he is also the author of Dale Archibald's using computers a book that you probably will not find at your local bookstore, but you can order it by mail from him and it's also available at where did you say be Dalton software Etc in the Twin Cities and sailor software first in the Twin Cities or through my post office box? Okay. Well, thank you Dale and that will about do it for this portion of our broadcast Mark not very often that I have the opportunity to listen to questions. I don't even understand the answers. You know II certainly couldn't give the answers but I at least most cases understand the questions but today kind of a Story for some of them anyway least I wasn't the only one left in the dust on this one. Oh, no, I really thought they were fascinating. Well, you even have one of those infernal machines, don't you? Well, yeah, I have a little one but I don't I don't do much of anything with it except a little bit of writing, you know and to do that. You don't have to know much about downloading and linking and all that kind of stuff a lie still plug along with my 1943 Underwood one of these days but who knows but 19 minutes now, I have to 12 noon you listening to weekend on ksjn not a terribly nice start to the weekend with cloudy weather over the entire State a little drizzle up in the north some outright showers moving through the Southeastern portions of the state temperatures ranging from the mid-30s in the Northwest to the 50s in the Southeast by late morning. The rain was diminished.