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     *IMPACT/99*

     by Jack Sughrue

     

 ^^^^GOOD OLD DAYS

     

 ^^^^PART III: THE DARK AGES

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     Were the Dark Ages really awful
 for all the people who lived through
 them? I mean, if I were a serf would
 I never have had any happiness if I
 truly didn't know about such things
 as freedom and rights? That's the
 impression we keep getting from
 everything we read about the Dark
 Ages (which were not called that, of
 course, except in hindsight).

     Might we not be living in the
 Electronic Dark Ages right now?
 Might not some future generations
 (freed from a flesh body thanks to
 robotics and the research into
 Artificial Intelligence) refer to us
 as primitive, what with degenerating
 bodies; minds cluttered with trivia
 and obsessions; politics of death
 rather than life; slums, homeless,
 terror, war, famine?

     But, still, might WE not think
 this is a pretty cool age? And we
 pretty cool cats? And Life a gas? (If
 not downright totally wicked awesome
 rad.)

     So we come to the eve of
 orphaning of the 4/A.  That infamous
 date (was it really a Friday the
 13th?) will linger on in many
 memories.  The doomsayers leaped from
 what they thought was an abyss and
 began chanting, "Dark Ages.  Dark
 Ages.  Dark Ages.")

     

     I can clearly recall reading the
 announcement in the papers and
 saying, "Forsooth!" (or whatever was
 the proper expletive in those days),
 and going home that evening and
 taking the cover off my console and
 looking at it for a long time.  Like
 Ol' Dog Tray, 4/A and I had been
 buddies for a long time.  Now it
 looked like the last roundup.

     "Wait a minute!" I thought aloud.
 "This computer still works.  It's
 still better than an Apple or IBM or
 Commodore as is.  There's no one down
 in Texas who is going to snap a
 switch that will shut off the 4/As
 instantly worldwide.  We still have
 over 2 million owners.  We still have
 software being made, books being
 written, and, best of all, my user
 group is still intact."

     

     We're well into the second half
 of that decade now and we're not dead
 yet.  Not by a long shot.

     There have been some remarkable
 misjudgments by publishers and
 software and hardware companies.  I
 think, for example, that the biggest
 mistake came when companies and the
 user groups eliminated the
 non-techies. Forgetting about them.
 Magazines like SMART PROGRAMMER
 overestimated the number of techies
 who would be interested in such
 things as internal schematics or such
 software as Advanced Diagnostics.
 Once the market was quickly saturated
 (some estimate TI techiehood as high
 as 10,000 people worldwide, out of a
 possible 2 1/2 million owners and a
 possible 7 million users) that was
 it.  Software, for the most part, was
 just not being made for the regular
 user.  As a result, lots of software
 companies died (as did lots of
 Fairware projects).  Pirates were
 blamed for ALL these deaths.  There
 was piracy, no doubt about it; but
 the pirates, for the most part, were
 the very techies who were a small
 part of this very small part of the
 TI community.  No non-techie would
 pirate Advanced Diagnostics, for
 example, even if they knew how (which
 would make them a techie), as it
 would serve no purpose in that
 person's computer life.  Nor would
 they pirate "Popeye" because they
 wouldn't have the technical ability
 to do so.

     I think piracy has been overated
 as a cause of death.  Particularly as
 there is no corpse.

     I know of many people in our user
 group (and this has happened at least
 nationwide) who left, first, because
 they believed the doomsayers; second,
 because they didn't understand the
 nature of undergrounding; and,
 finally, because the rest of us had
 bought RAMdisks and DSDDs and 512s
 and GKs and were getting into
 Assembly and were discussing GRAMS
 and GROMS and other such things.  Our
 workshops were turning into boring
 nightmares of technical jargon and
 fast-moving files flashing across
 multiple screens.

     The general feeling of these
 enthusiastic techies was expressed
 often and loudly at faires and
 conferences and club meetings: "If
 you don't want to join the 20th
 Century and update your system, then
 get the hell out!"

     As simple as that.

     The tape recorder crowd who
 needed a slower pace or didn't have
 the money (or desire) for upgrading
 the system, was left in the lurch.

     So were those who only wanted
 cartridges for software applcation:
 PERSONAL RECORD KEEPING, MULTIPLAN,
 LOGO.  The one exception, of course,
 was TI WRITER.

     I rembember one meeting where a
 speaker talked for 45 minutes on
 Eproms.  I didn't know what they were
 and no one in the audience knew
 (either before or after).  Or cared.
 Fewer of the old regulars came to the
 meetings.  There was no longer
 anything for them.  Each time we lost
 a few more members, my heart would
 sink.  Without the user groups, I
 knew, there would be no TI.  The
 machine would still work, but there
 would be no community, no sharing, no
 fellowship.

     

     We tried raffles and other
 bandaids for a while, but we didn't
 bring back the oldtimers.  And there
 aren't any newtimers.

     Or are there? 

     The TIs are still in the homes of
 many people.  If only young people
 (including old young people) could be
 encouraged to take an interest.

     Many of the techies (if they've
 not already done so) are going to
 leave the TI for greater techiehood.
 This is too bad.  They left behind
 some great things.  But they left
 behind (in those cases where there
 were club takeovers) many dead
 groups.  Some of us are not
 technically oriented, nor will we
 ever be.  There are a lot of 99ers
 out there with tape recorders; a lot
 of 99ers who have never used FORMAT
 on their TI WRITERs; a lot of 99ers
 who wouldn't evencareto own a GRAM
 KRACKER (which is great for them as
 GK isn't made anymore).  However, we
 non-techies can be assets to our
 groups.  Wecancontribute and have
 lotstocontribute.

     

     What did we do in the old days of
 before and after the orphaning that
 was so different?

     We went to our user groups as a
 social occasion, a monthly night out.
 I think that came first for most
 people.  The 4/A was our commonality.
 It was social.  We talked and shared
 and learned.  We were all, more or
 less, in the same boat.  Those who
 knew a bit more than we did helped
 us.  We did not feel excluded.

     I went to a large TI group last
 year with the intent of joining.
 When I got there I felt very
 uncomfortable.  The members did not
 introduce themselves, nor did they
 ask me to "come on over" and chat.
 Nothing.  The meeting was
 disorganized, but when it settled
 down, nothing happened.  There were
 no workshops, no plans, no anything.
 Except for five or six men (a couple
 rather famous in the TI community)
 who kind of held sway, loudly
 cracking inside jokes as one or the
 other of them talked a little bit
 about what's on their BBS, about
 Eproms (Damn Eproms, I say!), about
 how to wire in an XB chip to your
 console (using all the terms but
 without a chart or graph).  Everyone
 (except those five or six) was bored
 to tears.  I couldn't understand why
 anyone even came to the meetings.  I
 didn't join, though I belong to quite
 a few groups.

     When I went back to M.U.N.C.H. I
 noticed our meetings were getting
 like that (though not yet as bad).

     When meetings started to get down
 to three and four members present, I
 knew drastic changes had to take
 place.

     So what did we do to renew
 membership and keep it active?

     First, we started having user
 workshops.  Things we normal types
 wanted the computer for.  Most people
 want to do something with
 wordprocessing or graphics.  (PRINT
 SHOP is, after all, the most popular
 home computer program on the market -
 for other computers.)  Desktop
 publishing it's being called, and it
 is just that.  We started giving
 workshops on FUNNELWEB and PLUS! and
 CFS and TI-ARTIST and FONTWRITER,
 primarily, because people owned these
 programs or were seriously
 considering getting them, and they
 wanted to know how to use them.  They
 wanted to go slowly and in small
 groups and ask lots of questions and
 have things shown a few times.
 People have a mistrust of manuals, no
 matter how simple.  (The ones that
 are very simple seem too wordy; the
 ones that are thin seem to assume too
 much knowledge on the part of the
 user.) People like to see things in
 operation.  They don'tcarehow the
 TV or the car or the microwave or the
 washing machine work.  They only want
 to be able to use the things.  For
 most people, this is also true of
 computers.  And for the TI in
 particular because most purchasers
 bought it for home and as their first
 computer experience.

 We tried to provide for these 99ers,
 but we first had to get them back.

     We improved the newsletter:
 increased the number of pages,
 eliminated the repitious or
 irrelevant materials, tried to
 jampack it with goodies from all the
 exchange newsletters and add graphics
 and PROGRAMS TO TYPE IN whenever and
 wherever possible.

     Next we mailed them to ALL former
 members inviting them back to the
 fold.

     We had coffee and goodies
 available.

     We greeted each new or returning
 visitor at every meeting and pulled
 them right into the pre-meeting group
 discussions.

     And had signs xeroxed.  A batch
 was given to each member present to
 put anywhere and everywhere.

     We increased our raffles; brought
 back our text library, our
 long-forgotten tape library and
 dubber, our disk library.

     At each meeting we begin with a
 social time (to talk, eat, look at
 the stuff for sale, for loan, for
 raffle), pull everyone together for a
 general filling-in of what the
 workshops that night will be and a
 filling-in of what's happening in our
 computer's world.  Lots of jokes and
 fellowship.  Then we have a short,
 semi-formal meeting (president,
 treasurer, secretary) and conduct the
 workshops.  Meetings begin officially
 at 7.  Most members arrive by 6:30.
 We end abruptly at 9:30.

     We gave a list of all members
 names and addresses and phones to all
 members.

     There is much outside-the-club
 contact.  Many members belong to
 other clubs, too, so there is a
 greater sharing.  If members show an
 interest in Eproms, for example, they
 can bring it up at a meeting and
 request a workshop for those
 interested.

 The heart and the brain of the user
 group (for ALL user groups) is the
 newsletter.  Without it, there is no
 real user group.  It is the connector
 of members.  It is the communicator.
 It is the touchstone and signature of
 each club around the world.  The
 newsletters are as individual and
 quirky as the editors whose
 remarkable dedication continues to
 turn them out.  You can tell from the
 newsletter if the club is friendly
 and worth joining.

 The main ingredients in successful
 user groups are the four F's:
 FUN, FELLOWSHIP, FOOD, AND
 FRIENDLINESS.  When groups get away
 from these qualities, they're fading
 into the shadows.  However, as
 M.U.N.C.H. is proof, with a little
 effort a group can leap back into the
 light.

     My 4A and I have been through a
 lot together.  We're good buddies.
 It even sends me valentines.

     Would an Apple have been that
 loyal?  An IBM?  Ha!

     And 4A and me, we've got a long,
 long way yet to go.

     Join us by joining (and
 rejoining) your user group, go to the
 meetings often, voice opinions, run
 for office, staple the newsletters,
 bring a cake.  Something!  Because
 YOUarethe TI!

     Ten years from now I hope you'll
 be reading IMPACT/99 and sharing some
 of our mutual trips down Memory Lane.

     

     [This is the third of three
 articles about the author's personal
 experiences in the drama of 4Aing.]

     

     [Jack Sughrue, Box 459, E.Douglas
 MA 01516]

     

     

     If any newsletter editor prints
 these IMPACT/99 articles, please put
 me on your mailing list.  Thanks -
 JS

 
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