[svfig-announce] Meeting October 27

[Kevin Appert]

SVFIG Meeting September 22, 2007 --- this Saturday

At Cogswell College, 1175 Bordeaux Drive,  Sunnyvale, CA

*** SEE IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT SECURITY RULES
AT BOTTOM OF THIS MESSAGE ***

Main page --> <<<http://www.cogswell.edu>>>
Directions --> <<<http://www.cogswell.edu/directions2campus.html>>>

We are likely to be in our usual room - 197 A and 197 B
Marked in red on this floorplan:
<<<http://www.forth.org/svfig/room-map.jpg>>>

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AGENDA
09:45  --- COFFEE AND A CHAT

10:15 ---  FORTH DAY 2007 --- Kevin Appert
Suggest a speaker or volunteer to speak!  Time is getting short and the 
Program Chairman has been slacking off.

10:45 --- WHAT WERE WE TALKING ABOUT?  --- All
We'll take up topics, seemingly at random, of technical or common 
interest.  This may run into the afternoon.
Some thoughts:

IS IT ME OR IS IT GNU? --- The Fedora 7 live CD distributed at a 
previous meeting seems to fail the startup check.  What's up with that?

HOW MUCH IS THAT PUPPY LINUX IN THE WINDOW --- Puppy is an older, 
interesting small Linux small enough to boot from a thumb drive.  Or was 
it Damn Small Linux?  Are there better, more modern thumb-drive 
implementations?  How does one find, download and install?  How big a 
drive do you need?

VINTAGE COMPUTER FESTIVAL - Sellam Ismail
"Sam" MIGHT stop by to preview the Vintage Computer Festival to be held 
at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View on November 3rd and 4th
<<<http://www.vintage.org/2007/main/>>>   If he doesn't show up we'll 
look at the website, discuss the agenda, and mock him behind his back. 
(Dave, okay to redact)

THE ALLEN TELESCOPE ARRAY
There is a "phased array" of 42 - 6 meter radio telescopes just north of 
Mount Lason.   You may be able to join a car trip to tour the facility 
next week!
          http://www.hcro.org/index.html
          http://ral.berkeley.edu/ata/
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Telescope_Array

WHAT WOULD DILBERT DO? --- Kevin's in the mood for a "new" laptop.  
Should it be the Toshiba from Surplus Computer?  The Thinkpad from 
Tiger?  Something from LapTopTek?  Some other thing?  You can help him 
decide!

THE F-WORD IN CIRCUIT CELLAR MAGAZINE --- Bruce Ball pointed this out on 
the SVFIG list.  We'll discuss the use of Forth in this interesting project.

ROBO-DEVELOPMENT --- The last day of this trade expo will be Friday.  
Maybe Dave will have pictures.  At least we can talk about it.

HOW FAST IS IT, ANYWAY?  --- Is Firewire faster?  USB 2.0?

PASSWORD RESET --- Kevin has a WIN 2K machine he's trying to reset.  
He'll either report on the successful method or solicit advice.

NOON --- LUNCH
Some folks bring their lunch, some folks go to Togos.

13:00 --- INTRODUCTIONS, ANNOUNCEMENTS, RUMORS, RANDOM ACCESS

13:30 --- INTERESTING ITEMS - VOLUME 9 --- Dave Jaffe
Dave will continue his survey of interesting newly-introduced 
microcontrollers, I/O peripherals, sensors, products, and gadgets that 
can provide useful and unique capabilities to Forth embedded systems. If 
anyone has come across anything that fits this category, pass them along 
to him for inclusion in his presentation.

14:00  --- AUDIBLE COMPUTING, PART 2.5 --- Masa Kasahara
 EDITOR'S NOTE: This may be just a few words of preview of Masa's Forth 
Day talk.
Masa will elaborate and expand on his previous talk.  He will also talk 
about his struggles to bring his SPARCstation 4 back to life, which he 
hopes to serve as a new OpenBoot Forth System.

16:00 --- ADJORN

=========================================

The schedule above may be reformatted or line-justified but
please transmit verbatim or not at all.   Any font you like is
okay with me.

No Newsgroup posts or media distribution this month please!

 > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wireless Internet access is anticipated (though not guaranteed)
at Cogswell, so bring your wifi.

 > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Coming to SVFIG SOON:
* Bring speaker suggestions TO EVERY MEETING!

* PLANNING FORTH DAY - EVERY MEETING

* Andy Korsak has been working on accessing sound cards from
Forth for amateur radio applications.  His preliminary
work is posted at the Win32Forth Yahoo group under
files/users/korsak.  Membership is required to see the files.
If you don't want to jump through the hoops, Dave has posted
a recent version of the files here:
  <<<http://www.forth.org/svfig/SoundCardIO.zip>>>

* The world's second Babbage Engine is coming to town.  Maybe
we can have a meeting at the Computer History Museum and have
a look.  Ting should have an E-Forth written for it by then.

 > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Check the SVFIG web site at http://www.forth.org/svfig/
for last minute changes to this schedule.
The most up-to-date meeting information is at
http://www.forth.org/svfig/next.html

Many thanks to our wonderful Webmaster, Dave Jaffe.

Preliminary agenda along with schedule updates and
discussion may frequently be found on the SVFIG email list.
To subscribe send email to geoperry_at_gmail.com

Please let us know if this isn't your preferred email address for the
SVFIG-Announce mailing list.  Thanks for your patience.

Please suggest a speaker or present at a SVFIG meeting.
Email me, Kevin Appert,  forther_at_comcast.net  (see the
return address)

Please do not attempt to reply to svfig-announce at ...

=========================================

*** IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT GETTING INTO THE MEETING ***

Cogswell  now secures its doors on weekends. There will be an
SVFIG member at the door unless he's gone to get coffee or pee
because he's had too much coffee.  He'll only be there BEFORE
 the meeting to let you in so please try to get there before the start.
If you are attending an SVFIG meeting for the first time, please
bring along a printout of the agenda to identify your interest in
Forth and gain admission. If you arrive after 10:15 AM there
will be a number for you to call to alert someone of your presence
at the door. The front door will also be checked at intervals of 20
to 30 minutes to accommodate those without cellphones.

VERY IMPORTANT:
Do not under any circumstances let any stranger past the Cogswell
doors.  Those who are authorized to be inside have key-cards.