Date: 97/04/07 12:30 AM
Hello to all,
This is FLEX'09 User Group Newsletter, Volume 1, Number 02!
Welcome to the new members!
First the boilerplate introduction:
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My name is Ian Blythe and I am already known to several of you
with some private messages, however to those who have not heard
from me, I have picked your names from DejaNews as having
a continuing interest in the TSC 6809 FLEX operating System.
As this year appears to be the 20th Birthday of Flex (1977-1997 -
can anyone confirm this?) I thought that we could join together
and share our knowledge and enthusiasm for Flex.
If you do not wish to be emailed in the future on this subject,
please let me know, otherwise I welcome your thoughts on this.
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Following several mails I think we will extend our coverage to
6800 FLEX as well as 6809 FLEX (any votes also for UniFlex?).
To reiterate what I said in the first newsletter, we would like
to get copies of *ALL* the FLEX software, and put it on a CD-ROM.
Several people have indicated that they thought that their old
disks may now be un-readable. So please check now!
NOW is the time we need to archive the FLEX material, before it
disappears and one of the chapters of computing history is lost.
I think that between us we can do this, and share our part of
history.
Also, if anyone has any stories to tell over the history of the
development or distribution of FLEX please send me the information
to be included in a following newsletter (Randy, Egbert?).
Files on the CD-ROM (and FTP) are intended to be available in the
following formats:
FLEX binary files
FLEX binary files in S1S9 format
FLEX source files in ASCII text, wherever possible.
Documentation in ASCII TEXT and Adobe PDF.
With this in view, with the valuable aid of Joel Setton, we have
scanned and OCR'd the following manuals so far:
ASMB, DEBUG, DIAGNOSTICS, XBASIC, LINKING LOADER, MACE,
ADVANCED PROGRAMMER'S GUIDE and DYNAMITE
The last two are currently available as PDF. Email me if you
would like a copy. The others are being checked after the OCR
(Optical Character Recognition, TIFF to ASCII :) so they will
soon be available as ASCII files, and later as PDF.
It is intended that the CD will also include the FLEX emulators:
W95/Amiga (Ben Williams) and Linux (Wolfgang Schwotzer) - OK guys?
The CD will be in ISO 9660 format, so I hope it will be suitable
for PC/MAC/UNIX users. The CD-ROM will be cut when we have a
suitable critical mass of FLEX software.
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Special thanks to Rich:
From (c) Richard Pennington (Introl):
>If you can find a copy of Introl-C for FLEX I would be more than happy
>to release it so you can put it on the CD-ROM.
>Unfortunately, we seem to have lost all our copies :)
>P.S. I was actually the guy that originally wrote that beast.
Thanks, and we have found a copy! So this is one for the CD-ROM.
From (c) Frank Hogg:
>Much of the software we sold was written by someone else and they hold
>the copyright on their stuff. Therefore I could not legally release it
>to you. Personally I would because I don't see how it could hurt.
Thanks Frank, we need to track down the original authors to find out
the state of copyright. If anyone has any details, please give them to
me and I'll make the contact on behalf of the group.
From (c) Dick Bartholomew:
>You probably won't remember my name unless you still have some of the old
>magazines with ads from Frank Hogg Labs.
>I wrote many of the programs and utilities that Frank sold during the late
>70's thru the RS Color Computer days around 1984.
Thanks, Dick, could we have copies if you still have them? (and sources? :)
From (c) Randy Lewis (RTMX ex-TSC):
>I'm not too sure about 'offical legal' status & all that rot...
>We *may* have to investigate through legal-type channels to learn
>what our options are...
>I have most (if not all) of the sources..., I sure wish you could
>delay the scanning / OCR'ing for a short while so I could research
>this stuff. I may save you a considerable amount of effort...
This is the basic need, clear copyrights, although I still want to
collect all the files now, before it's too late, then get clearance!
From (c) J. Chris Hausler:
>Lastly, I did write a few utility programs a couple of which
>were published in 68 Micro Journal which I put in the public domain
>at that time. You can have those if you want although they're nothing
>significant.
Yes please Chris! and if anyone knows if anyone is throwing out any copies
of '68' Micro Journal, please point them my way!
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This section will give details of copyright clearance (ie public domain
status) of Flex software.
So far we have copyright clearance for INTROL 'C' thanks to Richard
Pennington, I've been in touch with Robert Reimiller of OmegaSoft,
this may be OK, more details next issue.
What's next to be cleared? It is hoped that this section will increase
in size quickly.
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Items wanted or available:
Oyvind Hagestuen is looking for a couple of WD1772s for his upgraded
FLEX system, any help with this? Oyvind's email address is in the header
field of this message.
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Next edition will include a list of FLEX software as of Jan 1983 from
an old Windrush catalog. This is to help jog your mind!
Coming up soon!
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Well that just wraps it up for the second newsletter. I appreciate all
feedback. If you hear of any FLEX software or systems being junked or
scrapped, please save it for us. I am collecting as much as I can.
Also I'm looking for manuals, any condition, photocopy or not, as long
as the copy is clean and can be scanned.
Send me a private email and I'll give you my shipping address
(I live in the south of France).
Also please give me list of what YOU have for FLEX, I'm setting
up a database to see who has what, to help organise the contents for
the CD-ROM.
Best regards to all
Ian Blythe
--
words are but mine own, I speaketh not for another
100116.3072@compuserve.com
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