CompuServe Sport Rocketry Forum closing 9/30/03

I hope you archive everything for history's sake. And if you get resistence from the mothership ask for help from one of the internet history firms that have sprung up to prevent loss of just such resources.

Good job Doug Pratt!

Jerry

While I never used Compuserve, this was a valuable resource that will be missed. At one point you considered taking the forum to the web. ANy interest?

I guess one of the first you ran into face to face, back in KC was my old DEC buddy Dan. I still run into him in cyberspace.

An interesting archive. Is that a CD that would be commercially available?

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

I remember from long before that....I got on CompuServe when we could only access the systems between 6:00 P.M. and 6:00 A.M. and it was tagged as "America's Nighttime Utility". It was used for business accounting and records during the daytime...we night folks were just paying to use the CPU cycles during the off-hours. A little later on they opened it up so that you actually could access them during 'peak hours', but it cost a *lot* more.

That was back when 300 baud access was $6/hr, and 1200 baud was just an expensive dream. 300 baud was a good 'live-reading' speed.

I was a beta-tester for Mike O'Conner's "CompuServe Navigator" (Macintosh).

CIM sucked; TAPCIS was a GODSEND when I was staffing a 1000+ message/week forum. Switched to OzWin later on; just chucked the manual for it yesterday, matter of fact. The TAPCIS manual got chucked when we moved into this house three years ago.

-Kevin

Oh, gracious I remember those days.Had a kitchen timer by the computer to make sure I didn't go over my weekly budget limit. All pure text on my TRS-80 model I with the old "put the handpiece on the rubber cups" modem that always seemed to leak data out the side:)

What, no tape drive? Skip it.

Joel. phx

Remember walking into the room and checking the tape counter because you knew how long each program was to load.

That is a rare find. I remember my first encounterr with one, 3 weeks after they were announced, and the return key was already flakey. if it wasn't in perfect condition now, it's amazing that one would be today...

Worse, after spending half an hour keying in a BASIC version of Malewicki, I tried to run it and it barfed onthe first non comment. Seems it could only do 4 function calculator math. No SQRT. No trig. Worthless. Second best I found of that era was the Comodore PET, which took 3 seconds to do one Malewicki. The Heathkit H11 was an order of magnitude faster, and even better with the addition of the floating point chip.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

You must've been dealing with a Level 1 BASIC box. Level II most definitely had SQRT and trig functions.

The HK11 was a repackaged PDP11/22, no?

-jav

You're probably thinking a Model I, which had the computer inside the keyboard, and a separate monitor.

Sounds like a Model I Level 1.

The system I'm betting Ted was posting about is either a Model III or a Model IV.

-Kevin "I learned to program on TRS-80s"

I actually still have a couple of working Model III's, one right here in my office on another desk, and the other in a box in the basement ready to scavenge for parts to keep the first one running (haven't had to yet, though). Like yours, my wife doesn't understand what I see in it either.

Every now and then I fire it up a play some of the Big Five games that just blew me away back when they were current. I still have some games on cassettes, and the cassette drive to load them, as well as a whole bunch of diskette-based software. And the 10-volume "Encyclopedia for the TRS-80" and most of my other books and magazines from way back when.

And if there's something I want to revisit that I can't find on original media, there's always the PC-based TRS-80 emulators. I still love playing Sea Dragon and Defense Command on my PC using the TRS-80 emulator.

And in case someone thinks this thread is OT, I once had a model-rocket simulation program for the TRS-80 written in BASIC that I actually remember using, as my original interest in model rocketry overlapped my original interest in computers back in the late 70's.

...Rick

I've got two. One has a busted key. You interested in the one with the busted key?

I want the other for myself!

Also, somewhere, I think I still have a bunch of 80 Micro books.

Zooty

I still have a Toshiba laptop with both CIM and TAPCIS on it - they still run, not that you could use them.

Zooty

All of the Irvine/Rogers programs were available on TRS-80.

Jerry

Doug,

I was on your forum for many, many years. It was a wealth of information and humor.

I will mourn it's passing.

I mourned the passing of CompuServe years ago.

For a good time, break out a couple of old (say, at least 10 years) issues of Kilobaud, Byte, Circuit Cellar Ink, etc and leave them lying on the coffee table during parties...

BillW

What about Micro Cornucopia, Midnight Engineering, and early Dr. Dobbs (running light without overbyte)?

It's also disheartening to realize that ALL of the old electronics hobbyist magazines have bit the dust (Radio Electronics, Popular Electronics, et al)

David Erbas-White

Bill Westfield wrote:

I RESEMBLE THAT.

How 'bout a few years worth of Creative Computing and 80 Micro?

-Kevin

Doug -

The main driver for getting my first PC was to access the rocketry forum on CI$. It was great! I didn't have a browser on my PC, but I had the rocket forum. That was enough. I remember calling Compuserve a couple of years ago to cancel my membership and the customer service person was surprised how long I had been a member. Just think of it, you don't think of yourself has being a member on the internet.

Doug, take a bow. You've done great my friend.

Jonathan