******************** QL CLUB INTERNATIONAL ******************** ISSUE 118 December 1998 MIKE KENNEALLY E-MAIL MIKEKENNEALLY1@COMPUSERVE.COM WWW.GEOCITIES.COM/SILICONVALLEY/VISTA/4807/ ANY AND ALL SOFTWARE SENT TO THE CLUB/NEWSLETTER WILL BE TREATED AS PUBLIC DOMAIN UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED. HI ALL, ONCE AGAIN I MUST APOLOGISE FOR THE LATENESS OF THE NEWSLETTER.I HAVE YET AGAIN DROPPED A BIG ONE. THE STORY IS THIS,I CAME TO A POINT WHEREBY IT WAS A CHOICE BETWEEN UPGRADING OR BUYING NEW.TO UPGRADE TO WHAT I THOUGHT WOULD LAST ME A LIFETIME WAS GOING TO BE EXPENSIVE,SO I WENT OUT AND BOUGHT NEW. I NOW HAVE A TIME COMPUTER,K6 400mhz,DVD,PCTV,13gb HARD DRIVE,WINDOZE98 AND ALL THE OTHER BELLS AND WHISTLES,THE ONLY PROBLEM IS THAT IT DOESN'T LIKE THE QXL CARD OR THE SPARE HARD DRIVE WITH ALL MY QL FILES ON IT,SO HAVING PASSED MY OLD MACHINE ONTO MY DAUGHTERS,I HAVE STILL GOT THE QXL RUNNING.I AM HOPING THE QPC WILL WORK WITH W98 SO I CAN BUY IT AND INSTALL IT ON MY NEW SYSTEM. ENOUGH OF MY PROBLEMS ON WITH THE NEWSLETTER. JC,I WILL PROBABLY HANG ON TO YOURS AND SEND YOU 2 ISSUES. #! Colin Baskett 2 January 1999 EQUIPMENT: QL FITTED WITH SUPERGOLD CARD; MkI MINERVA - version 1.82; SUPERHERMES; SMSQ/E; 170 MB HARD DISK; SINGLE 3.5" HD DISK DRIVE; SINGLE 3.5" ED DRIVE; PHILIPS COLOUR MONITOR; SERIAL MOUSE; PRINTER EPSON Stylus COLOR 200; XCHANGE 3.90L, etc.. Dear Mike, Sorry to have missed one (or is it two?) contributions. I can only plead pressure of other activities. Will try to mend my ways. I would greatly appreciate it if you could copy the missing issues on my disc and I enclose a spare disc if that is needed. My last issue was 116. NO PROBLEM COLIN,I KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE. There has been some discussion about copyright. Perhaps I should clarify the position of QUANTA as I understand it. We no longer claim copyright over material published in Quanta. I think there were two reasons for this change: (a) some authors were unwilling to give up their copyright and (b) we received informal advice that we should not claim copyright over material for which we had not paid. Robin Barker has suggested that authors who wish to retain copyright should add a notice to that effect but I do not think we make any assertion about matter otherwise being PD. I am writing from memory so I should be glad to be corrected. Re- Wendy's BJC 4200 and Mike's question "HAVE YOU GOT YOUR DIP SWITCHES SET RIGHT", the printer in question does not appear to have dip switches. At least there is nothing in the user's manual about dip switches. The only way indicated for changing emulation mode (e.g. from Epson LQ to Canon BJ) is via the (PC) software disks provided with the machine. I now have a different printer problem. Having been given an EPSON Stylus COLOR 200 as a present, I find that I am at a loss to access the scalable fonts with which the machine is said to be equipped. The User's Guide provided with the machine says " ... fonts can be selected from 8 to 32 points in 2-point increments through your software or by sending an ESC/P 2TM command. See the documentation that came with your software for information on selecting the the size of scalable fonts." The documentation in question is on (DOS) disk and I have not found any way of accessing it from my QL. The User's Manual does list the available printer commands under general headings such as, e.g., "Page format:" or "Font selection:" but without indicating what parameters, if any, are required and indeed without any comment. I imagine that it is one of the "Font selection" commands that I need and there is one, "ESC X", which does not occur in the list of Canon Epson LQ emulation commands in the Canon BJC-210 Programmer's Manual that I happen to have. The BJC-210 does NOT support scalable fonts. Does anyone know what the ESC/P 2 printer control code for scaleable fonts is and what parameters it takes ? Best wishes Colin B #! #! Martin Burke, 20th December, 1998. Dear Mike and Friends, JM version + Trump 768 + HermesLite + twin 3.5" disks, JS + Super Gold Card, Philips CM8833 colour monitor (under repair) and its Tandy twin, 8056 printer, Epson RX80 F/T, and Brother HR10 daisy-wheel printer; PSION3a, Z88. I think I can confirm Cyril's still going, still keen on graphics. I think it delights him that he can produce "works of art" via computer. I never could produce art in any form but did not care about it either. One of Cyril's abilities is an uncanny skill at finding(?) holes in systems so that they no longer work as they should - or even not at all. I think Cyril knows less about the QL/computing than I do but he is only concerned with being able to deal with the graphics. Unfortunately his happy unawareness may allow him to mess systems up. But he does it with such art! I KNOW THE FEELING MARTIN,I DON'T KNOW HOW HE DOES IT BUT IT KEEPS HIM HAPPY AND NO DOUBT SOMEONE MAKES A FEW QUID FROM MENDING HIS SYSTEM! And on other messed up systems, Mike: I was copying a backup disk with many differently dated files. I do not want to reset the QL clock for each file: there has to be a simpler way. Doesn't there? Yours, Martin Burke. #! I DON'T KNOW DOES ANYONE OUT THERE KNOW? !#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!# J.C.Marcus 27-12-98 GEAR: Aurora + SGC, Minerva 1.97/SMSQ/E, Hermes, Qubide/100M ZIP DRIVE, 2xHD, CUB 653, Epson LQ500; JS QL with GC and 2xDD Hello Again All, First, thanks again Mike for sending me the back issues for the year. I'm not sure when this will get to you, but could you please send me all issues post QL117. I guess I'm at least 1 issue behind, but never mind, here goes. I note you have "4 dead QL's" lying around. I wonder if you've ever tried publishing details or "symptoms" in the newsletter to see if you can get any of these resurrected?? It might make a change from your endless tales of PC woes {:-))}. In my experience, most "routine" problems with electronic equipment can be traced to bad or dry solder joints. On the QL side, I've managed to destroy a couple over the years, by stupidly switching on printers or monitors while the QL itself was on. What usually goes then is the ULA - the ZX8301/2 or CLA2310 ic, which is very sensitive to the spikes generated by doing something silly as above. I stand to be corrected, but as far as I can remember, the display then gives red and green vertical stripes, and not much else happens.... Of course, if all else fails, you could try Tony Firshman, who offers a QL repair service. I HAVE 2 WITH NO KEYBOARDS,1 WITH A SCHON INTERFACE(IN BITS)AND 1 WITH A SNAPPED PIN OR 2 IN THE EXPANSION SLOT.I AM IN THE PROCESS OF AQUIRING ANOTHER(WORKING ONE)FROM ANDREW PRATT.SO I SHOULD BE OK FOR NOW! There has also been a few "moans" recently about the small size of the newsletter, and how few people are bothering to write. Although this is quite true, could it also mean that people are having less problems with their QL's??? We live in hope, I guess. I THINK THE MAIN THING IS THESE DAYS IS THAT THERE ARE FEWER "BEGINNERS" WITH A QL,WHICH WAS ONLY TO BE EXPECTED REALLY.AS THIS WAS SET UP AS AMEDIUM FOR NEW USERS,A LOT OF PEOPLE DON'T WRITE AS THEY STILL SEE US AS THAT,PITY REALLY AS WE COULD LEARN A GREAT DEAL FROM PEOPLE WHO ARE WILLING TO HELP GUIDE US ALSO I THINK ITS THE THOUGHT OF HAVING TO SPELL THINGS OUT FOR ME ANYWAY,IN WORDS OF ONE SYLLABLE OR LESS THAT PUTS THEM OFF. Martin Burke: From QPAC2 Files Menu, "Copy" will change the file date; "Backup" won't. I'm glad to see that more and more are {finally} getting to grips with the PE/QPAC2. Despite all comments to the contrary, I really believe that this has to be the way forward. I remember when I first started playing with the tutorial that comes with QPAC2, how my jaw just dropped further and further towards the floor. This is definately the bit of QDOS missing when it was first launched (along with ALL the other missing bits....). Finally, if my words published here are no longer my words, can I freely libel all and sundry? Great!! Now, for a start, *%*%**%CENSORED$%#^#+* Bye for now, JC !#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!# Dilwyn Jones dilwyn.jones@dj.softnet.co.uk ============================= Email : dilwyn.jones@dj.softnet.co.uk Gear: Black Pentium PC + QPC + Canon BJ10sx printer; Toshiba T2400CS laptop + QPC; MinisQL-Aurora + SVGA monitor; JM QL+Gold Card + HP Deskjet 320 printer. Dear Mike, Hope you've got over Christmas. I hope it didn't get in the way of your QL activities. I also hope you didn't blow up your PC and QXL too many times! NOT TOO OFTEN DILWYN,BUT HOPEFULLY IT WONT BE MUCH LONGER BEFORE I AM UP AND RUNNING AGAIN. My Aurora is working again - it's now in a MinisQL case, but it only came back just before Christmas, and I've been too busy with QL Today to use it much - more about the MinisQL in the next issue perhaps. I enclose some clipart to go with this issue for the new year. It's Calendar type clipart, one picture for each month of the year. Two ZIP files - one contains the clipart in QL 512x256 Mode 4 screen format, while the other contains the same clipart in Line Design pages format. All Freeware, as usual. In case anyone doesn't know how to unzip these, here are simple instructions. You need a copy of UNZIP. You can get this from most sources of QL software,such as PD libraries and bulletin boards and QL related Web sites. You can get the latest version from Jonathan Hudson's Dead Letter Drop site(www.jrhudson.demon.co.uk) I assume you will be unzippig the files from FLP1_ to FLP2_. Make sure the disk contaning the zip files and UNZIP is in FLP1_ and a blank, formatted disk in FLP2_. Enter these commands to unzip the screens version: DATA_USE FLP2_ EX FLP1_UNZIP;'FLP1_CALSCRS_zip' DATA_USE FLP1_ or to unzip the Line Design pages version, substitute FLP1_CALLDPS_zip for FLP1_CALSCRS_zip. Hope someone finds a use for these pictures - might be useful if you have a colour printer and a plain blank calendar perhaps! The Graphics Viewer I sent in a few months ago has a bug in the HP Deskjet printer driver which gives an error message with some files. I'll send in a revised version when I manage to fix it. Dilwyn Jones December 29, 1998 Y2K In 1999: Plumbing the Reality of the Problem By Mitch Ratcliffe - ZDY2K How big, broad and bad will Y2K be? By the time January 1, 2000, rolls round, we will know almost exactly what will happen. Approximately a fourth of the problems with computers and computational devices will already have happened, during 1999. The 1,999th year of the Common Era will be the year that provides the first really useful examples of real-world errors that people need to plan for. Tracking these events should allow you to assess the true risk you face as the Year 2000 approaches. Many institutions and companies will begin their Fiscal 2000 business years during 1999, and several key dates represent potential failure points for embedded systems. If government or corporate payroll checks stop flowing, or if the management systems for key infrastructures fail during 1999, you can count on many more such problems in 2000 and 2001. If not, then there is substantially less to worry about, because potentially catastrophic failures are not the exclusive domain of post-2000 dates. According to the Gartner Group, only eight percent of all date-related errors will happen on January 1, 2000. Some problems began to strike as early as 1996, when calculations first encountered post-1999 dates on credit cards, inventory and other data. Gartner's director of Y2k research, Lou Marcoccio, believes the majority of Y2K errors will strike over the next three years, in relatively equal portions. After 2001, a few problems will continue to strike as "dormant code" in legacy applications occasionally triggers errors. Two key dates, the beginning of Fiscal Year 1999 for 46 states on July 1, 1998, and for the federal government on October 1, 1998, have already passed without noticeable effects. On each of these dates, computers in government agencies began to look forward into Fiscal Year 2000 to perform projections and calculate benefits. Errors were expected, no significant interruption of government services occurred. There are several critical dates to keep an eye on, including January 1, 1999, because they will put speculation about catastrophic problems to the test as computers begin to use 2000-dates. Also, these dates will demonstrate how human systems respond to the errors -- if checks keep flowing despite computer errors, that will be evidence that contingency plans are working; and failures will show where better plans are needed. January 1, 1999 This is one of the biggest days in the history of computing, because two critical formatting problems will converge in real-world applications to cause problems. First, many computer applications, such as inventory, benefits, banking and credit systems, will begin to look ahead into 2000. When they do, the chances that an unrepaired Y2K problem could trigger a problem are high. The result, miscalculation of expiration dates on time-sensitive inventories, errors in checks produced to pay employees, beneficiaries or suppliers, under- or over-estimation of interest on credit accounts, and many other potential problems. The U.S. expects some problems with unemployment benefits due to look-ahead calculations, beginning on January 1, 1999. Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have applied short-term patches to their systems to enable them to continue to issue benefits checks. Whether those fixes hold, and how they accommodate post-2000 calculations, will tell much about how other federal computers will handle the date roll-over later in the year. Secondly, the new European currency, the Euro, goes into virtual use on January 1, 1999. Although it will be virtual at first, used to calculate exchanges of older European currencies, the presence of Euro-denominated calculations in systems that previously dealt only with dollars, marks, pounds or other existing currencies could wreak havoc on transactions. Many of these January 1 problems will not appear until the second day of the year, because they will be processed in batches after the close of business or after midnight, so January 2 may be the first date to generate recognizable errors. January 4, 1999 The first working day of 1999 is probably the most important date for getting a bead on how computers will handle Y2K problems, because it is the first day that new data will be entered in most systems that are looking ahead to 2000. New data represents risk, because older files may be isolated from date-based calculations. For example, if you buy a television set on which you will not pay interest until 2000, the salesperson will enter the data into the store's computers, which will pass it along to the credit company computers for processing. If either of these systems has a Y2K problem, now is the time it will malfunction. What do you want to look for as evidence of problems on these early 1999 dates? Well, headlines exclaiming the loss of benefits checks by pensioners is a good place to start. But also keep an eye on your own bills, particularly the ones generated by Christmas buying, which will being to accrue interest in January, 1999. A late invoice or an error on your bank statement will tell you that this is a company to keep your eye on. April 1, 1999; July 1, 1999, and; October 1, 1999 Each of these dates is the beginning of an important fiscal year for government. On April 1, Canada, Japan and New York state begin their Fiscal Year 2000. Forty-six states begin Fiscal Year 2000 on July 1st. The U.S. government starts its Fiscal Year 2000 on October 1. For all intents and purposes, these dates are the real beginning of 2000 for government benefits and programs. And, because government is the largest consumer of virtually every product and service on earth, it is a critical date for suppliers and companies that depend on payments from government. If errors occur in government computers, interfering with the payment of Social Security, Medicare, veterans or other benefits, a large and very influential segment of the population will immediately be in an uproar. Two indicators to keep an eye on are: the earnings warnings of companies that are highly dependent on government for their revenues -- an interruption in government procurement processes or payments will show up in these corporate statements about upcoming earnings; and the credit/bond ratings for these governments, which would be downgraded if there is a change in their ability to pay creditors. April 4, 1999, and September 9, 1999 These are the infamous "Nines Problem" dates, which may be interpreted by computers as either nonsense dates or an order to end all processes. Programmers sometimes used a string of four nines in the date field to denote infinity, which would be understood by the application as a date that didn't exist, or to indicate an "end of process" that would shutdown the application. April 9, being the 99th day of 1999, and September 9, being the ninth day of the ninth month of 1999, are expected to trigger some of these Nines Problem errors. If it happens, it will be proof that programmers' shorthand can produce terrible problems, and would indicate that applications are also highly susceptible to date-related errors around the beginning of 2000. In our opinion, the Nines Problem is a massive red herring. Neither of these dates would be formatted as "9999," since even Y2K-susceptible applications use a six-digit date field (00/00/00) to represent the date. April 9, 1999, would be formatted as "99/04/09" and September 9, 1999, as "99/09/09." The "9999" string was selected as a nonsense or end-of-process date because it would not occur in normal operations using dates recognizable to humans. Granted, some programmers may have erred and used date formats that generate "9999" (for instance by counting the days of the year, not the day of the month, you would get "9999" on April 9th). This will be the rare exception, not the rule, since at minimum applications accommodate six-digit dates. July 1, 1999 If the look-ahead calculations performed during 1998 and early 1999 don't generate errors, July 1 represents one of the last critical dates for this type of error. Applications that apply six-month windows to processes will begin to perform calculations using post-1999 dates on July 1. August 22, 1999 The Global Positioning System, the network of satellites that allows planes, trains and other infrastructures to identify the precise location of a receiver on or above the earth's surface, reaches the end of its built-in calendar at midnight, Greenwich Mean Time, on August 22. The system will rollover and start at the beginning of the calendar, again, operating for approximately 20 years(1024 weeks to be exact). Some people expect massive logistical errors on this date. If a company or agency is using an older GPS receiver, manufactured before 1994, there is a chance that the rollover will affect the management of traffic. The GPS system does count time in weeks (actually it's 0 - 1023 weeks, for a total of 1024, which some argue is another problem, that GPS systems won't be able to deal with a "0" week. It won't be a problem.) However, the week does not come into play in a GPS calculation, except at the instant the system rolls over. GPS calculations deal in milliseconds. A GPS receiver determines its position by triangulating difference in the time it takes for signals from two GPS satellites to reach it, a matter of milliseconds.The only time the week would enter into the calculation is as the system rolls over from Week 1023 to Week 0. A GPS receiver that is not prepared for the date rollover would think that the one or both of the satellites had taken 18 years to send a signal that should have taken less than a second. It could not calculate its position accurately. In some cases, the reciever would simply fail to function, but in most it would just produce a weird reading. Most commercial users of GPS have upgraded their systems. For example, the Federal Aviation Administration, a major user of GPS data, has upgraded its systems to handle the system rollover, as have airlines. If the GPS system rollover does cause problems, it will bein routing of traffic. An airport with an outdated GPS receiver would have to revert to ground-based positioning systems, like radar. But, as noted, the likelihood of a GPS system error is low, because almost all hardware in the US has been upgraded. December 31, 1999 By the last day of 1999, there will be plenty of data for analyzing what will happen as the calendar rolls over to 2000 across the globe. This, however, will be the most interesting and, possibly, anticlimactic days to come along in a long time, perhaps since, at the end of the first millennium, rapture-watchers were disappointed by Christ's failure to return. Throughout the day on December 31, parts of the world will be entering 2000 ahead of others. Likewise, some computers have been programmed to treat this date as nonsense, when the computer is no longer supposed to function. Many computers expected to fail on January 1, 2000, may do so today if they have not been repaired. The global air traffic control system will roll over to 2000 all at once, at midnight, Greenwich Mean Time, on December 31, or at seven o'clock in the evening in New York and four in the afternoon in San Francisco. That's the time to watch the skies, and the airports, for disaster and long lines. What will be happening? If Gartner Group is right, and only eight percent of the world's Y2K problems will make themselves known on January 1, 2000, there may be little to report as the world turns from December 31, 1999. Those expecting a wave of catastrophes may be treated to an underwhelming reality. Whatever happens By the end of 1999, the facts will be in. Either there will be a tremendous amount of evidence that the Y2K problem is going to bring major infrastructures and business processes to a grinding halt, or there won't be. There will be little support for the "we can't predict what will happen" school of thought on Y2K, because much will have happened. Public awareness of these problems, and especially of the fact that the problem will be as much as a third of the way complete by December 31, 1999, is critical. The impression shared by many, that the whole Y2K problem will strike on January 1, 2000, should be laid to rest. Based on the facts collected in 1999, society and individual organizations will be well armed to plan a response to Y2K. BLIMEY!,AFTER ALL THAT.I THINK I'LL GO TO SLEEP TILL ITS ALL OVER,CAN SOMEONE GIVE ME A WAKE-UP CALL IN 2005,IT SHOULD HAVE SORTED ITSELF OUT BY THEN! AND ON THAT HAPPY NOTE I SHALL BRING THIS ISSUE TO A CLOSE.