MSNUG January News (Vol. 1: Issue 10 -1:31:98) Sections: I. WHAT HAPPENED AT THE MSNUG MEETING ? II. MSNUG NEWS BRIEFS. III. NEW NEWT NEWS AND RUMORS. I. --------WHAT HAPPENED AT THE MSNUG MEETING? -------------- January was the first MSNUG meeting of 1998. The meeting fell on tuesday the 13th at Beaner's Coffeehouse. East Lansing Michigan. This was the big 'Scrawl Software' theme meeting yet we had too many people, too much fun, and too many things to talk about, because the demos didn't get started until 9:15pm. I brought along PT100, YAZI, Chiral, and Mahjongg as well as a big color printout of photos of the people at Scawl Software and one page handouts with product info for PT100 and YAZI. I also brought along a MP2100 with a 16MB card filled with way cool stuff. The most fun was having almost every product Lee Moon has ever created (quicktime-like movies for the Newton) on board, but that's not relevant for now. The SCRAWL demos were primarily an extensive demo of PT100 by Clint Thayer. He did alot of work preparing a multi page handout with many screenshots of different things you can do with the software. My favorite was the screenshot of he in Michigan and his brother in Washington "talking" in real time with his MP2100 logged on to a UNIX box. My demo was YAZI and I also discussed chiral and mahjongg with some folks. A big thanks to SCRAWL for the raffle of a copy of PT100 that went to Jonathan. In March, MarkSpace Software will be the sponsor of MSNUG. They make 'PageNow,' paging sofware for Newton and other platforms. Oh also Clint will have the hottest warez software since Text to Speech (hint: previously eMate only and unbeamable) at the February meeting, so don't miss it. I had lots of fun at this meeting. It was out of control. There was an enormous amount of Q & A going on because of several new people had bunches of questions as well as lots of knowledge to share. Helen was a new person who had many questions for Clint, while I was talking to Eric Chang who I haven't seen since about June. Eric wants an application or utility that allows a long sound recording to be played starting in the middle or wherever you want in the recording (editing would also be nice). Another new person, Chris, brought a ThinkPad and a curiosity about MessagePads, and Tom, an MSU Prof, came seeking information about portable computing. Jeff made the trek up from Detroit again with his MP2000 and got lots of software (beaming) from me. This time Trent didn't come along but another friend Greg who brought his PalmPilot. Jonathan stopped by for some beaming (and winning PT100) and Eben stopped in for some eMate 300 'show-and-tell' and won a T-shirt. Greg and Clint talked about PDAs alot and I showed Greg the new PalmPC 'Nino' literature which I thought he'd find interesting. I'm curious how well the handwriting recognition (HWR) will be on the PalmPCs. At least THIS Micosoft OS based product doesn't use a chicklet keyboard. But it is a complete COPY of the PalmPilot and it (like the Pilot) steals unistroke HWR from Xerox PARC (perhaps Xerox patents are just considered public domain, what's the deal, they get NO respect). Oh and by the way, does Microsoft make anything original? Sorry couldn't resist. Coolest evening highlight: Clint running seven Lee Moon (http://members.aol.com/LeeMoon) QuickTime Movies simultaneously on my newton. Clint was over to one side playing with my 2100 and then he started laughing and held it up so we could all see, stating "look all seven movies running at the same time!" My Windows NT 4.0 box crashes on the screen saver, but my NEWTON can run seven movies. That just about sums it up. (Details: the movies were; Doggie, Earth* -B&W, Earth* - Grayscale, 1984, Lost in Space, Think Different, Simpsons. DO try this at home! You couldn't even hardly see them all, but they were all going. *Earth isn't actually Lee Moon's, it's from Yischon at http://www.deepfocus.com/). Some choice MSNUG topics of babblement included: -Raffles: (with random selection by the MSNUG giveaway program) PT100 to Jonathan, Newton bulb T-shirt to Eben. -Clint also showed off More Info 5.0 -TTS + talking Alarms is way too cool. -newton.uah.edu, hotline://ni.syr.edu are other sources of newton apps -The VGA out PC Card and Power Point like apps for the Newton -bDrop looks very neat. -barkeep vs. button bar Plus -Jonathan has a major eight channel sound board! -Clint sold off two 1MB SRAM cards for ~$30 each. -FYI: Brian Cor moved to Illinois and sent word to the MSNUG via the newsgroup (msu.newton.misc) that at his first job interview he found his boss and two others had MP2000s! Cool. At the end of the evening the attendees had been: Several familiar faces like: - Doug Luckie, myself (President and Newtsletterboy) (with MP2100/2.1, 28.8 Megahertz X-Jack/16MB SRAM Card) - Clint Thayer (Minister of Propaganda) (with his MP2100/2.1, 28.8 Megahertz X-Jack/6MB FlashRAM Card) - Oren Kennedy (Winner of all raffles) (with MP2000/2.1). - Jonathan Williams (Warez software collector) (with his MP2100/2.1, 16 MB FlashRAM Card) - Eric Chang (MP2100/2.1) - Eben Gilkenson -Sales Executive of Eubulus Computers (eMate 300/2.1). Some newer faces were: Jeff (with MP2000/2.1), and Greg (with a PalmPilot) from Detroit, and Tom, Chris, and Helen from the Lansing Area. II. ------------------MSNUG NEWS BRIEFS------------------- 1) WEB PAGES for MSNUG -MSNUG home page on the World Wide Web is at http://surf.to/msnug -MSNUG Newton Gallery is at http://www.msu.edu/~luckie/newtgal.htm -MSNUG Newton Hall of Fame is at http://www.msu.edu/~luckie/hallofame.htm 2) NEWSGROUPS FOR MSNUG browsing -msu.newton.misc (at MSU) -comp.sys.newton.misc (on internet) 3) SCHEDULE The Michigan State Newton User's Group meets the 2nd TUESDAY of the month. Thus the next two meetings are ~7:00 PM, February 10th and March 10th 1998. III. -----------NEW-NEWT-NEWS-AND-RUMORS------------ (ripped from the pages of *NewtNews* http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/NewtNews) 1. MP130 & MP2000 ARE ON THE WAY OUT WITH PRICE DROPS MacInTouch posted on 12Jan97 a list of "no longer available products on the Apple Education list" -- the MP130 and the MP2000 are included in the list. Also recent rumors indicate a big price drop for MP2000s will happen early Feb. 2. RUMORS Mac OS Rumors published a piece on 31Dec97 entitled "Rhapsody Lite: Apple's answer to WindowsCE?" that hinks that rumors have linked a future version of the Mac OS to be 'synthesized' with Newton OS. Apple copies Microsoft? 3. SYNC TO OUTLOOK Want to sync your Newton with Microsoft's Outlook?!? Then check out Seamless Software's "LookOut" or PDA Direct's (http://www.pdadirect.com/) "Outlink." 4. MICROSOFT ANNOUNCES "PALMPC" & PALM COMPUTING RESPONDS Microsoft has announced a copy of the PalmPilot called Palm PC based on Windows CE 2.0 (http://nino.philips.com/). Palm's president Donna Dubinsky says sarcastically: "It's in the fine Microsoft tradition here to copy everyone else, [but] it's one surprising step beyond that to even copy the name." 5. NEWTON FLIGHT SIMULATOR RELEASED Lee Moon (http://members.aol.com/LeeMoon) is now offering an Early Preview (EP) version of Nflight (a 3D, real-time, vector graphics flight simulator for MP2x00 devices) for the Newton. 6. NEW BACKDROP OPTION GojiraWare is now shipping 'Ultimate Backdrop' -- the 'bDrop' picture backdrop solution for the MessagePad 2x00 (http://www.GojiraWare.com). 7. TIBET SOFTWARE: NEWTON <--> DIGITAL CAMERA The TIBET software (http://www.compassinfo.com) on the Newton talks to AGFA digital cameras (and some Olympus cameras). This software enables MessagePad 2X00 and eMate users to take a digital photo, view it (including zoom and pan), make notes associated with it, and email the text (in the body of the message) and the photo (as a JPEG attachment). 8. INKSPOT 1.10 RELEASE WITH "TTS" The latest version of the popular Newsreader for Newton now has Text to Speech capabilities. (http://www.martnet.com/~dejavu) ------------------------------------------- The Michigan State Newton User's Group meets the Second *Tuesday* of each month. For questions about MSNUG, send email to luckie@pilot.msu.edu. Hope to see you there! Where: Beaner's Coffeehouse 270 W. Grand River Ave East Lansing, MI 48823 Directions and Maps: http://www.msu.edu/~luckie/msnuggen.html Douglas B. Luckie Founder and Newtsletterdude Michigan State Newton User's Group luckie@pilot.msu.edu