TPUG – Issue Number 2 – March 1984
TPUG (Toronto PET User’s Group) magazine was the official publication of one of the largest and longest lived users groups for Commodore computers. It started in 1979 and continues to operate today. The magazine itself ran for about two years but there have been other publications associated with TPUG before and since. On the cover of this issue is the SX-64 which was the portable version of the Commodore 64. Contents of the March/April 1984 issue of TPUG include:
- C-64 Automodem – Review of the Commodore 1650 modem for the VIC-20 and Commodore 64. This modem had the advantage of not requiring a separate RS-232 interface because it plugged directly into the user port. This was a 300 baud modem which isn’t even mentioned probably because that speed was taken for granted. At the time, this modem was retailing for about $160. The most interesting part of the review to me is the statistics given for the Toronto area. In early 1984 there were approximately 40 BBSes in the area, of which about 6 of them were dedicated to Commodore computers.
- Comal – At article about COMAL that originated from a presentation Jim Butterfield gave at one of the user group meetings.
- Executive 64 – Otherwise known as the SX-64, this is the machine the cover story is about. It was pretty amazing for the time being a portable (luggable anyway) Commodore 64 with built in disk drive, keyboard and 5-inch color monitor and having full compatibility with Commodore 64 and VIC-20 peripherals. The only downside was that it weighed nearly 28 pounds. Brand new it would set you back about $1200 but that wasn’t a bad price for what you got at the time. I had a neighbor that had one of these and we played games on it from time to time.
- Floating Point Numbers – An article about how floating point numbers work in Commodore 8-bit computers and some routines for achieving more accurate representations. By default, they had 9 digits of precision.
- Giving Your Disk a Bath – A success story about cleaning a disk after spilling Coke on it.
- The G-Link – This was a device that plugged into the cartridge port of the Commodore 64 to allow certain programs to be compatible with a parallel disk drive which was much faster than the standard serial drive used at the time.
- Interpod IEEE + RS-232 – An interface primarily designed to allow the connection of 4040, 8050 and 8250 disk drives to the Commodore 64. Up to 30 dual disk drives could be connected which is pretty amazing…Imagine a Commodore 64 with what amounts to 60 disk drives attached. This interface also provided an RS-232 connection for a printer or modem.
- Jumpman Bug – Really a cheat to make it so that you don’t die when you fall. Death is the bug.
- Las Vegas and the 264 – The introduction of Commodore’s 264 which was meant to be a productivity machine. The final name ended up being the Plus/4 and it was a complete failure. Slightly later, the Commodore 128 ended up being a pretty good productivity machine though.
- Line Finder – A short machine language utility that will give you the memory address of a line of code.
- The Manager – Review of this database management program that was originally written for the PET but was now available for the Commodore 64.
- Messy is Beautiful – Encouraging students to write messy programs…
- Right Justify – Some tips on how to right justify the out put of your programs with examples.
- Santa Wore Shorts – TPUG visits Australia around the holidays.
- Single Disk-Drive Bugs – An analysis of a bug in some of Commodore’s disk drives including the 2031, 1540 and 1541 with regards to RELative files.
- SuperPET Column – The first in a series of articles on the SuperPET. This one focuses on the editor.
- Toronto BBS Numbers – A list of BBSes and their phone numbers in the Toronto area. There are about 30 numbers listed of which roughly half are 24 hours and the other half are only open certain hours (it wasn’t uncommon for a BBS to be open only overnight because the phone line was dual use). I wonder if any of these are still around?
- Two Disks or Not Two Disks – The advantages and difficulties of using two disk drives with the Commodore 64. Most of the difficulty comes in changing the device number but later iterations of the disk drives had simple DIP switches for this.
- Type Attack – A review of a game available for the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 designed to teach you typing.
- UltraBASIC – Review of a BASIC package that offers many extensions to the built-in Commodore 64 BASIC including a variety of commands for creating graphics.
- Warm Resets – Commands for the PET, Commodore 64 and VIC-20 that will reset the computer without the necessity of turning it off and back on.
- When Verify Doesn’t – Some information on the VERIFY command which is normally used to verify that the program in memory matches the same program on the disk. However, will give an error if the program was originally saved on another computer type.
- The Winter CES Show – For many years this show was a big deal for the home computer industry. In 1984 new Commodore products included the 264 and 364 (later known as the Plus/4 and Commodore 16) as well as new monitors, printers, games and other software.
- The Word Worker – An overview and comparison of two word processing programs for the Commodore 64, Script 64 and WordPro 3 Plus/64. The following month, EasyScript and PaperClip would be featured.
- Vanilla Pilot – Review of this easy to use programming language designed for education and entertainment for the Commodore 64, PET and VIC-20.
…and more!
