[Coco] Glenside Monthly Meeting is 10-05-2023

Thu Oct 12 13:28:06 EDT 2023

Hello and thanks for what you are doing for the CoCo community.
I often work during the evenings you are holding your meetings.
But I will make an extra effort to be there at the next.
have a nice weekend

Eddy Szczerbinski
Magicien Textile Wizard
@EdSzczerbinski

________________________________
De : Coco <coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com> de la part de John Mark Mobley via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Envoyé : mercredi 11 octobre 2023 00:20
À : 'CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts' <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Cc : johnmarkmelanie at gmail.com <johnmarkmelanie at gmail.com>; 'richard' <rcrislip at neo.rr.com>
Objet : Re: [Coco] Glenside Monthly Meeting is 10-05-2023

All,

The meeting time is past. We did not make quorum, so we could not hold the
meeting.

JMM: Previous Msg: The club needs your input and ideas. Please try to make
the meeting.
Rich Crislip: Question: What specifically can I do or suggest to help? TIA
JMM: Answer:

We need at least (I think) 6 people at the meeting to meet quorum. If we do
not meet quorum, then we cannot vote on any issues. I think this is
important so that a few people don't ram a decision through. We sometimes
must make executive decisions, because we are not able to meet quorum. And
this is not a good precedent.  We loosely follow Robert's rules of order,
which give guidance for parliamentary procedures. Everything is to be done
decently and in order. I think this may be why we need to meet quorum. We
also have a constitution and by-laws that govern what we are allowed to do.
Our meeting attendance has been dropping off and we need people to step up
and participate. We need new leadership. We need new blood and new ideas. We
need turnover or our current leaders are likely to burn out. We have many
ideas of what the club can do, but almost no one to do the work. Sometimes
leaders need to delegate their responsibilities, but there is no one to
delegate to, so important work may not get done. I may only be able to serve
in leadership one more year because of a possible work status change. If we
go too long without a meeting, then we will have to put out fires instead of
planning ahead like we should do.

Needs:
  Brainstorming ideas for the club: High-level and low-level
hardware/hardware-description-language/firmware/software/gaming/block-diagra
m/ideas challenges. 4k coding contest and such.
  Writing articles for the newsletter/website. Also provide artwork,
diagrams, schematics, pictures, graphs, and such.
  Event planning: In-person CoCoFEST! one weekend, on-line CoCoFEST! another
weekend, picnic/cookout, outings, get-togethers, in-person meetings, and
on-line meetings. And not just in Chicago, but all over.
  Vision: Without vision the people perish. Where do we want to be in 10
years as a club? My vision: I would like to preserve CoCo data so it will
last 2000+ years. I hope to have access to this data in the future. Find
where work is being accomplished and join in with the work.
  We need ideas on how to interest young people in this hobby.
  Find out what is going on. COVID hit and we went on-line. Then the Chicago
leadership people moved, died, got busy, got old, or lost interest. Now
COVID is not as much of a problem as it once was, but for some reason, we
cannot go back to the way things were. So now what? What do we do now? We
must go on! We need each other!
  Find out why conference rooms are so expensive and what we should do about
it. Is Chicago the best place? Are prices better somewhere else?
Promote an event. Make posters, make fliers, send emails, or just get the
word out somehow.
Provide an unofficial Wi-Fi network at the CoCoFEST! Use the cellphone
network or a satellite link.
Provide a plain old telephone network. Plan an internal Wi-Fi mesh network
that need not connect to the internet. It could just be an intranet.
Start planning your CoCoFEST! table/booth/ideas now. Think of something new.
Think of something old. How about a punch tape reader for the CoCo? You get
the idea!
If we have a tape reader, then we can read in the binary code for the
original Altair 8800 Microsoft BASIC and run it in the CoCo CPM emulator
thing.
If I have an ESP32 (or Raspberry Pi) with Wi-Fi to serial, what can I do
with it? It is like a modem. Perhaps it can do telnet, ssh, scp, xmodem,
kermit (protocol), DriveWire, and such. What if I could use my CoCo as a
terminal and connect to a Linux computer and run Python code from my CoCo?
What if we could have a BBS at the CoCoFEST! so we can all have a use for
our ESP32s? It is a great device. It just needs that killer application.
We need help with the database.
We need a librarian.

Here are some example hardware ideas for the club to design. Maybe you can
come up with your own.
Idea 1: Find a way to measure the min, max, and average keyboard timing.
Measure how long it takes from the time the solenoid is fired to press a key
until the key is registered as being pressed. Try to make it universal so it
can be used on more than just the CoCo. The CoCo could close the cassette
tape output relay and that could cause the solenoid to fire. Or you can fire
the solenoid some other way and let the CoCo close the tape output relay to
signal that the key has been recognized.
Idea 2: Find a way to measure the min, max, and average video (converter and
monitor) processing time. Measure the time from the video horizontal
interrupt until the screen updates. Find a way to measure from more than
just one spot on the screen. Try to make it universal so it can be used on
more than just a CoCo. You could use a phototransistor as feedback. You
could use the serial port or cassette port as an input.
Idea 3: Find a way to measure the min, max and average timing from keyboard
pressed to screen update. Or joystick to CoCo timing. Or joystick to screen
update timing.
Idea 4: What if a Raspberry Pi computer could fire the solenoid used to fire
the keyboard and read the phototransistor? And when you are done using it,
you can disconnect the solenoid and phototransistor from the Raspberry Pi
computer, so you can use the Raspberry Pi for something else.
Idea 5: What if someone else has already done all this?
Idea 6: What if you improve the timing on your computer and finally get to
level two of Donkey Kong?
Idea 7: What if you could recommend one keyboard over another based on hard
facts and not just feelings or opinions?
Idea 8: What if a CRT display is the fastest display, you will ever find?
Idea 9: Is this even a problem that needs to be solved? I figure the screen
on a CoCo should update about 30 times a second. So that is every 33.3 ms.
And (based on a recent internet search) the average video to keypress human
reaction time is about 250 ms. So, this may all be much ado about nothing.
How bad can my Roy Justus RGB-to-VGA plus VGA-to-monitor-output be? If the
answer is "less than 25 ms", then it will likely not affect my Donkey Kong
score. This human video-to-keypress time can be measured on a CoCo with a
simple program. Or you can try to stop a stopwatch at exactly 30 seconds and
see how you do.
Idea 10: Perhaps someone could just make something crude and bring it to the
CoCoFEST! so measurements can be made at the CoCoFEST!
Idea 11: CRTs are nice, but the AC power needed to power 50 monitors may be
too much. How about a portable battery powered generator at the CoCoFEST!
for your CRT, solder station, and heat gun?

More ideas:
Come to the meeting and I will share more ideas.

  Ideas on how to design:
    1) Do not do low-level design by committee. State the overall objective
and overall specifications.
    2) Do not tell anyone what you are doing because feature creep will kill
any project. Keep it a secret. Or else you will hear "Is it done yet?"
    3) Form 3 teams and let each team do their own thing. Then bring
together the 3 designs and take the best of each design.
    4) Divide the project into about 7 parts and let 7 individuals/groups
work on the different parts.
    5) I do not necessarily need a dedicated piece of equipment for
something I am only going to use 3 times in my life. What if I could use
off-the-shelf parts that are interchangeable with other things? Ex: A
ESP32/Arduino microprocessor plus a Raspberry Pi computer plus USB-to-serial
plus CPLD/FPGA plus a simple circuit can make a system.
    6) Use open-source software, open-source hardware, and right to repair.
We want a sustainable design, not planned obsolescence.

What would you like to see Glenside do?

Come join us at the meetings. Think of something you are willing to do for
the club. Note: The club may be able to provide the software you need to do
a job.

-John Mark Mobley

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