Howdy Fellow Commodore Users!

This month, if you didn't plan on attending our meeting, you are going to miss some mighty fine eating. Our annual bring your covered dish meeting is this month, December 19th. Start planning that exquisite recipe now, and be sure to give that recipe to Julie Barr, our secretary, who is gathering together recipes for a club cookbook. I have a few favorite recipes that I plan to have included, one of which is my favorite snickerdoodle recipe.

This year has been a rocky road (no food pun intended) for the Commodore modeming community. First stab was when CompuServe coverted their Commodore Forum, followed by the total removal of that forum. Fortunately, there is still a small fraction of that forum that has been splintered into the Vintage Computer Forum, but alas, it is still not accessible by a Commodore.

Second stab is Delphi's dialup network to be discontinued by the end of the year, which has been used by Commodore Users for many years. Delphi users with Commodores now have to find a local ISP that offers shell accounts, and then telnet into Delphi. At least not all Commodore Users are shut out with this option, but a lot are not so fortunate in the offerings provided by their local ISP's.

The third stab is Genie discontinuing their original service on December 27th. Everyone who isn't already moved over to their new web based service is urged to call and finalize that move. Their new service is a shell type of service, so it will benefit the Commodore community at large, if they are close enough to a local number to take advantage of it.

Is there a possible light at the end of the tunnel? Maurice Randall of Wheels fame is working on his long shelved Wave program for geos. He expects this program to be usable before the year-end, and released to the Commodore community at no charge. This means that a C64 or C128 can use the connections of internet services like AOL, Prodigy, or CompuServe, just like the IBM Compatibles and Macintosh systems currently enjoy. More details will be available when the program comes out, and you can be sure our club will have a copy of that program. If you are an old time club member, you might remember I demo'd the Wave on a 28.8K modem when we were still meeting at the Nativity School Library. So, this is a program I have been waiting for, for a long time!

A jpeg viewer is now available for the C64, for both the native and SCPU versions. The web address to find out more about it is:

http://www.ffd2.com/fridge/

I have used it, and it does work! Thanks go to a wonderful set if programmers to bring this option to life! The two program names are JPZ and JPX. If you have no internet access, it will be included in our library this month.

I mentioned in last month's meeting, that there were problems with our email account at Geocities. That problem still exists, and it has finally been recognized by their tech support, but no resolution to the problem has been forthcoming. In the meantime, I have set up a new email address to take care of the club's email:

cbmusers@yahoo.com

This might become our new email address, if the resolution to the current problem is not fixed.

If I don't see you this month, I wish to send along my best wishes for a wonderful and joyous holiday season, and a Happy New Year!