.IF DSK1.C3 .CE 6 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ^W-AGE/99 * NEW-AGE/ ^99 *NEW-AGE/99* N ^EW-AGE/99 * NEW-AGE ^/99 *NEW-AGE/99* ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^*by JACK SUGHRUE, Box 459, East Douglas, MA 01516* ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^#1 Why NEW-AGE/99? Well, it's been almost a year since my long-running IMPACT/99 columns were rudely interrupted by a car accident which kept me from my beloved  little computing machine. So why NEW-AGE/99? After my brush with death last spring I initially felt I had been given another shot at Life (definitely with a capital "L") and wanted to reflect this New Age even with my computer. Secondly, "impact" sounded too much like a crash. Thirdly, I think my view from the TI sidelines for so long gave me the distinct perspective of seeing a New Age arrive for us. And, finally, the sharing and caring that was shown to me during my repair time by 99ers worldwide made me realize that my commitment wasn't to the little computer (that kept me occupied in thousands of wee hours) but to the people. Even now, so long after The Event (always capitalized in my family), I continue to get cards and letters and disks and TI-related thingies from all over the world. This past week I got cards from England, Belgium, and Australia. And a few more from this country and Canada. To all those well-wishers everywhere who were so supportive during my long recovery, I can only say, "Thank you." You were all very instrumental in my rapid comeback. Even the doctors were amazed. Regarding my operations, the most oft-asked question was, "Will all those metal plates in your head set off alarms in airports?" I have no idea. I haven't flown since. I had the stainless steel one and one of the titanium ones removed in a recent operation, but I still have seven left. Permanently. And I am back to work on a slightly limited basis. And I DO drive. A new car. My other two-month-old new car was totally demolished when I hit the tree. And - YES! - I was VERY scared the first time I got back behind the wheel once I could see okay again. It had been so long. I'm still cautious, but I'm no longer frightened. I had also been drifting toward large blimphood, but I lost lots of weight after the accident and have been able to keep it off. Crash diet. So there's another positive. I really have athousandTI people to thank, but I must particularly single out Charlie Good, John Willforth, Chris Bobbitt, Timothy Dermody, Tony McGovern, Jim Peterson, Jim Cox, Sister Pat Taylor, and so many patient newsletter editors for support above and beyond the call of duty. Having inadequately given such little thanks when so much more was due, I'll now move right into N-A #1. Each month I plan to explore in these two pages some TI fairware and some commercialware and a bit of the goings-on. The first going-on is Bill Gaskell's. I am sorry to learn of his FOUR-A/TALK swan song. For the year he wrote it, it was the most interesting column around. The variety and the history and the enthusiasm and the good writing made FOUR-A/TALK the boost we all needed. It was a very sustaining column that each month also introduced us to all the new goodies available to us (and there are many). The TI World Community will sorely miss your writings, Bill. Hurry up with the skiing and golfing and get back to your computer. In Bill's last article he talked about John Johnson's most recent BOOT program as of October 1989, good for Hard Drives, etc. For those with the "normal" system of a drive or two but not the techie wizardry, you can still benefit from the BOOT. It may not be the ONLY way to go, but it sure is one of the very best. Someone sent it to me during the time I wasn't able to compute, but when I got back to the keyboard recently I popped it in and had my flabber gasted. First it says, "MUG BOOT LOADING." That's the Miami Users Group (6755 Tamiami Canal Road, Miami, FL 33126). Then comes the menu: 1 SHOW DIRECTORY; 2 DISPLAY A FILE; 3 RUN A PROGRAM; 4-9 Options 1-6; C TI XB. #1 shows a directory of any disk (including RAMs) and permits marking of files for viewing, running, deleting. Marking auto-sets files when you return to Main Menu. A text file appears when #2 (DISPLAY) is pressed. An XB or E/A file runs automatically if #3 (RUN) is pressed. When you press the spacebar another menu (with Options 7-15 and TI XB) is displayed. Press again and a third menu (with 16-24 and TI XB) is shown. This means you can type in anything on the options to VIEW or RUN including LOAD itself, which is handy if you have a bunch of LOAD programs (such as FUNNELWEB) that you want to operate offANYdrive. If you have a DSDD and two drives, for example, you could load onto this MUG BOOT disk all your favorite programs AND another whole disk of favorites on Drive 2. (And a zillion more.) Then you can put your top 24 on this menu and your other top 20 onto your FUNNELWEB menus and on and on. With this program you could build the perfect environment for yourself, but that's only scratching the surface of this February '89 version I have. Here are just a few of the single keypress things this will do for your minimum XB disk system: turn screen off; load disk directory; print directory; view text file; print text file; run XB or EA program; EASILY configure up to 24 (actually, unending number) files for autoload; run gram/grom modules; delete files; cycle through and mark groms; toggle XB color interrupt routines off and on; do a CALL routine; change print device; get and display ROM header at >6000 (whatever that means); configure BOOT tracking; display version # and author; toggle instantly between all options; save all configurations; use additional active keypresses in sub menus; and so on. Could you have dreamed that something so wonderful and so simple to operate could ever exist for our TI? Get the latest version from your user-group library or write to Miami. Don't forget a decent fairware donation. In his final column Bill Gaskell was surprised by the ingenious FUNNELWEB built-in to change upper to lower case by holding CONTROL/period and running the cursor over the characters (words, sentences, etc.) to be speedily converted. I don't think he realized that Tony McGovern also did a reverse - lower to upper - by holding CONTROL/semi-colon. Tony told me he added this because he was not a good touch typist and found retyping from one case to the other too time consuming. The day after I got this version (4.0 and up), I was typing along without looking at the screen. When I looked up I had 20 lines or so of upper case. Zip. With the cursor and Tony's ingenious keypress changer I was back to typing in seconds. Try it the next time you use FWB (speaking of which, have you tried the new 4.2? It's got some great LARGE changes.) NEW-AGE/99 will detail it all soon. [If you use NEW-AGE/99 please put me on your exchange list.] Հ