32by32 - Macintosh History from the 1980s

BMUG Meeting minutes 9/24/87

Acta document

BMUG Meeting 9/24/87

[ long discussion about memory upgrades, accelerators, hard drive interfaces, and the like ]

Announcements

Q: Why is there no real Mac clone?

A: Copyright Law in US is better than Patent Law.

Q: What about Magic SACâ„¢ (Atari clone)

A: It needs Mac ROMs, old revisions

Q: What’s up with the BBS?

A: It is now running Opus on a PC clone.

We exchange Mac messages on EchoMac with about 50 BBS’s around the world: PoloNet, MacQueue (661-7374), Macintosh Tribune (923-1235).

Q: How soon do BMUG meeting minutes get posted?

A: Right now, they don’t, much. Any volunteers?

Q: How about job listings?

A: Ditto

Telecom SIG: Every other Wednesday, 8 PM, BMUG office

New HyperCard Stacks:

At first, we haven’t been filtering stacks. At least half the stacks on any BMUG disk are solid. Most stacks are for “educational” purposes.

Q: Is HyperCard like BASIC?

A: Yes, in terms of its innovation and what people are doing with it. It imposes the Mac user interface and violates it in some ways. People are trying to make it like the Mac, but some watn to make it a different thing, with its own benefits. More like the Mac=> computers analogy

Q: I really mean “Is it programming for non-programmers?”

A: Yes and no.

A: It is a good environment for learning to program.

A: It allows a lot more flexibility from the user point-of-view, especially in the interface.

A: Redefine “programming” – communal applications… a tool for creativity with more flexibility.

We’re seeing trade-offs in terms of ease of use versus size of program… but this makes more possible.

BMUG’s HyperCard SIG meets every other Monday at 6 PM. It will concentrate on programming.

Q: Is anybody doing anything in 4th Dimension?

A: Writing an ordering system.

A: Messing Around

A: ACIUS has a list of developers – about 200 in US

Q: Omnis 3?

A: <no answer>

(some discussion of 4th Dimension and ACIUS news and philosophies)

Laurent Ribardiére, the programmer, is a very interesting character. “No line in the program is documented”? Written as one large piece of code, not broken down into units. Scott Knaster left to go back to Apple, in a different role than before he did Acius tech support.

Dbase Mac: slow as a dog, although it is released.

4d: appears excellent, resembles HyperCard in many ways. They were both written by one person rather than a committee.

Database market projected to be big by 1990.

Heizer software… stack exchange – like Excellent exchange. He will sell low-cost non-PD stacks that are really excellent. in Pleasant Hill. We’ve got flyers in the office. 943-7667.

BMUG has 11 Stack disks.

$3/ea.

MacToberFest

come & show stuff! See the list for needed topics in particular.

Thursday, October 22, Pauley ballroom.

lots of fun.

MazeWars & Strategic Conquest tournaments

ARTICLES WANTED FOR THE BMUG NEWSLETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

deadline: MacToberFest

topics: what would you want to read?

what you hate, love, use, how you use it, how to do something, updates or extensions of old information.

Dbase Mac is shipping!

SEF HyperCard conference in November

Software Entrepreneurs’ Forum (SEF)

Hypercard/Stackware Programmer’s Seminar

Saturday November 21, 1987. Location, to be announced, but probably south bay. Price to be announced, but probably $95 for SEF members, more for non-members.

The current tentative list of topics include:

The HyperTalk Environment-a technical introduction

Command & Function Secrets

HyperCard Programming Strategies

Nuts-and-bolts Stackware Implement, incl. known bugs, etc

External HyperCard Resources

Sales/Marketing/Distribution

Source Protection

Data Transfer from other sources.

Communications

Danny Goodman, Author of the 700 page_The Complete Hypercard Handbook_ has signed on as a speaker. Selecting the participants in each panel has not been completed, but we have strong interest from a number of other speakers.

Additional suggestions are welcome.  

Software Entrepreneurs’ Forum is a non-profit group of over 300 people, mostly programmers, who have formed sort of a guild to help one another develop and market software products. Our organization was founded in ’83. Each month we have four separate meetings: a general dinner meeting, an IBM SIG meeting, a Marketing SIG and MAC-SEF, the Macintosh programmers SIG. This month’s MAC SEF speaker was Bill Campbell of Claris. This month’s general meeting speaker was Rob Campbell of Forethought (now MicroSoft); past speakers include Andy Hertzfeld, Jean Louis Gassee, Phillippe Kahn and many others.  

For more information, contact Ed Niehaus, (415)626-0651, or Reay Dick, (408)3654851 or Michael Odawa, 415-381-2650.  

Takeovers

VersaCad was taken over by Pr1me computer

SofStyle taken over by Phoenix Technologies

printer drivers and PostScript clones & hardware…