Welcome To The 'Editorials'!
I'm writing my first editorial in the spare room of our house. It's a warm Friday evening. I've finished work for the day, had a wonderful meal and there's a fly buzzing around the room.
Like many members I have owned an Elk for a number of years. When I first got it I went after the latest game and longed for anything that wasn't available.
Well now I've settled down a bit. My Elk gets a lot of work as a word processor, database and games machine when I need to wind myself up.
This is the era of the PC and the Sega. We're not going to see the heady days of the mid-Eighties ever again - when the latest Slogger advert was scanned for what to save up for next, the newest Play It Again Sam was soon to be released and Electron User told us our humble Elks would never be Beebs (as if we didn't know!).
Yet since several hundred thousand Electrons were sold, it's clear that many former Electron users have chosen to go onto other things. EUG members like their Elks. Not because they cannot afford anything else. I like my Elk because it does what I want it to do and it suits me.
This group is your group. It produces what you send in. If it seems a little sparce then this might be because you haven't sent in anything.
OK. Someone said to me why would they want to send something in and then read it again when they get the EUG disk? Well, if you send something the disk will be more interesting for other members and they, in turn, might be stimulated to send something themselves.
What to send
I, for one, would like to write one of those 1000-line masterpieces that does something clever with pretty graphics. Like most people though, I don't know how.
Look at this. I use Starword. I recently wanted to program a function key so that, when I finished a letter, I could press one key and print:
Yours faithfully,
'Gus Donnachaidh.
I tried to do this putting in all the spaces but the buffer would not take it. I did for a while use two keys but this lacked sufficient elegance. I then realised that I could do it like this:
*KEY 0 Yours faithfully|M|M'Gus Donnachaidh|M
This idea is not restricted to users of Starword because the principle can be used elsewhere.
Simple? Yes. "Everyone knows that one!"? No! I didn't. What you send doesn't need to be long and detailed. It doesn't need to be clever. It simply needs to be anything about how you use your computer which others might find interesting. So if you have a special technique which you use in a game, something you're working on or whatever, send it in! Also, if you get stuck and don't know what you're doing wrong, send it in!
My own slant as the new editor is that EUG so far has been fun but there is no reason why it should be restricted to items about computers. Have you recently done a repair in your home, at work, in your car, etc. Tell us about it. How did you choose your materials? What problems did you have? How did you finish it? What gave you the idea to do it in the first place?
Some might not be interested in what you write but many will. So don't keep it to yourself. Send it in!
A member (Val Black) recently repaired a shower mixer. She is in the process of writing an article about how. It will be accompanied by a diagram which will be drawn using a special diagram package written by me and the property of EUG. (It should be here now but a few problems have crept into it at the last moment! If I'd waited any longer, you may never have got this disk so it will now appear in EUG #15!)
The diagram package is extremely simple and basic but is surprisingly versatile. You, as an EUG member, will be free to use it for what you wish so long as you occasionally use it for an article for EUG.
From the next issue, I will be introducing a new section called "Practical Ideas". These can be about anything - so send some in!
Do you know that we have members overseas? Some of them might like to hear simply about where you live, what goes on there and items of local news. It doesn't necessarily need to be good news either; interesting might be nice. And what of our overseas members? What's life like there? What do you do with yourself and your time. Here we are on EUG #14 and few of us even know anyone else's name.
Send it in! All disks/tapes will be returned to you. They are cheap to post so you really do have nothing to lose.
Send it in.
Gus Donnachaidh, EUG #14