Howdy Fellow Commodore Users!

This month, I have been playing with some software that I mentioned back in December. The Wave for the C64. This software is still in the beta stage, the version I currently have is version h.

The story starts as I was reading news releases posted by Robert Bernardo of the Fresno Commodore Computer Club. In it he mentions the trials that Maurice Randall was going through to get the Wave working. Robert reported that the COPS mailing list was going to be used to report the status of the Wave, and Wheels, along with the originally intended postings of Postscript Printers for Commodores.

As I was reading through the past archives, I noticed that Maurice was needing help in verifying the operations of the program with the local ISP's. Apparently, some ISP's differ in their logging requirements, causing some current beta testers grief. I figured I should help out with this chore, as I hoped to be the user of this software when it is completed. After all, I do have multiple ISP's that I could test.

I emailed Maurice that I wished to be a beta tester for the 64 and 128 versions, and within a half hour, he emailed me back an enclosure containing version f of the Wave. On Monday, March 6th, I received version h, which included the new logging in procedures.

Once I got a fresh copy of Wheels running on a new disk, I transfered over the newest Wave (I hadn't tried version f, at all). I looked over the included documents with version F, then tried to run the Wave. It wouldn't let me start the program because of the setup I had for my Super CPU. I needed a software update to run it under my original configuration. Rather than download more software, I changed my configuration to be more compatible to Wave. This time it let me run the program, and I was welcomed to the startup screen.

I setup two ISP's I had hoped to use on a regular basis, and set the login procedure for automatic. I successfully connected, and then telneted to Delphi's logon screen using both ISP numbers. Congrats go to Maurice on a job well done.

Uncompleted in this release is alot, but without being able to communicate to the ISP's, everything else would be worthless anyway. Some of the hints one may get exploring thru the program include IRC, FTP, and webbrowsing! I am not sure how far Maurice is in implementing these features, but the Wave can already read HTML documents. That makes me glad that I have a basic knowledge of html, so I can create my own startup page on my disk for future use.

If I have given you an urge to get this program, it has mighty high requirements:

C64 or C128 in 64 mode.

Wheels Version 4.2 with a memory expansion cartridge of some kind

CMD's Super CPU with at least 1mb of RAM

I plan to bring a setup to the meeting this month. If you have not had the opportunity to see the latest version of Wheels, here is your opportunity to see this, too.

Oh, I think I might have forgotten to mention that next month on April 1 and 2, we will be at the Sharonville Convention Center for Tradeshow Production's Computer Show. We will be needing volunteers for the booth, so let one of the officers know if you can help out.

See you at the next meeting on March 19.