TRAVELS WITH BERNARDO: FUNHUG March 1997

by Bob Bernardo

Last July I was fortunate to finally visit the Fremont-Union City- Newark-Hayward User Group
(FUNHUG). I first telephoned the president, Ed Hart, to find the directions to the meeting place, the
Newark branch of the Alameda County Library. The library branch was located in the Newark Civic
Center, off of Freeway 880. Meetings were held on the third Wednesday of every month. 

I arrived in the area 3 hours before the 7 p.m. meeting in order to beat the rush-hour traffic and have
enough time to find the Civic Center. After a bit of circling and asking for directions, I found the library,
and with the extra time remaining, I went off to the nearest Taco Bell to have dinner. By six, I was back
at the library, reading magazines and waiting for the club members to show up at the meeting room.
About 20 minutes before the start time, they started to trickle in. I introduced myself to Ed Hart,
reminding him that we had met many months back at a Commodore Hayward User Group (CHUG)
meeting. I put on my FCUG badge, signed the guest list, and was greeted by the other members,
including a person from Oakland who had contacted the FCUG home page and whom I steered
toward FUNHUG. 

After finding out that I was from FCUG, Vern Viani, librarian of the group, asked me who was
responsible for writing the article about Jack Vander White, editor of CEE Alive disk magazine. I told
him, "You're looking at him." Momentarily surprised, Vern recovered and said that they had taken my
article and republished it in their newsletter but with a "buyer beware" warning at the end. It seems that
Vander White had not fulfilled a month or two of the disk subscription FUNHUG had ordered. Now it
was my turn to be surprised. In my interview with Vander White, he seemed honest and forthright. I
promised Vern that I would see Vander White later in the summer to buy some computer hardware
from him, and I would mention the FUNHUG problem to him. (Little did I know that I wouldn't be able
to keep my promise. Jack Vander White moved and left the Commodore scene. Whereabouts
unknown.) 

A flat C128, 1571 disk drive, and Commodore monitor were set up at front of the room while we
waited for the demonstrator, Mark Murphy, to arrive. Mark finally showed up--quite a feat considering
that he lived in Hercules which is on the distant north side of the bay. Mark was editor of the
FUNHUG newsletter, and a person with whom I e-mailed information on FCUG happenings. He
asked those present to help him unload his car; his tiny car was stuffed to the walls with Commodore
materials. He announced his intention to stop being newsletter editor and to rid himself of all his
Commodore possessions. To the shocked crowd, he explained that he and his wife just didn't have any
more room in their little 2-bedroom apartment for two computer systems. The PC would stay; the
Commodore would go. We placed the many cardboard crates in the back of the meeting room and
proceeded on with the meeting. Including myself, there were 14 people present--a large number which
bolstered the spirits of Ed. He had earlier told me that due to low turn-out, he was considering merging
his club with CHUG located a few miles away. Ed had brought to the meeting a large number of plastic
5 1/4" disk boxes and said that anyone could take them. We did! He also brought to the meeting
several dozen 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" double-sided, double-density floppies to be sold--20 for $1. (He runs
a side business and obtains closeout disks from Silicon Valley computer companies. He mentioned that
he had to trash 25,000 disks earlier, because he didn't have any more room.) 

Mark then went on with the demonstration--logging onto the Internet and browsing through it. He
connected a 14.4K external modem via Swiftlink cartridge into the back of the C128 and used the
Desterm 2.0 terminal program. He got onto West Coast On-Line, a Bay Area Internet service provider
(ISP) which offers shell accounts. With a shell account, a Commodore person can use a terminal
program to connect onto the ISP's main computer and with the use of Lynx, a text browser on the main
computer, a Commodore can cruise through the world-wide web. In effect, the Commodore becomes
a terminal to the main computer. I had never seen a Swiftlink cartridge that close before, and I had
many questions about how Mark had configured Desterm to work with it. However, a member
canceled my questions; he didn't want to know the specifics; he wanted to get on the Internet. Because
I was a visitor, I deferred to what he wanted, and Mark continued. Murphy's Law reared its ugly head;
for some reason Desterm didn't want to stay at its highest speed--9600 baud--and it jumped down to
300 baud. After several tries to cure the problem, Mark resigned himself to slow browsing. No
matter--the members were keenly interested. He showed the basic commands of Lynx and then asked
for web sites to look through. The members didn't have any in mind, and so I mentioned that Mark
could look through the FCUG home page. Using the "go" command of Lynx, Mark keyed in the
address of the home page and connected. The members then read the home page description of Fresno
Commodore User Group. 

Midway through, Mark opened the meeting to his sale/giveaway. What a sale it was! Monitors,
printers, joysticks, printer interfaces, and hundreds of neatly-organized programs and instructions--all
for a few dollars or free! This was no time for being shy, but I was a visitor and not a member. I felt
that I shouldn't have first dibs. Consequently, a lot of bargains slipped through my fingers--an entire
library of Loadstar 128 disks, a Commodore monitor, an Epson-compatible printer. Mark assured me
that my status didn't matter. In the end I came away with several regular and remote-controlled
joysticks, a mint Micro R & D printer interface, several graphics programs, a couple of JiffyDOS chips,
a typing tutor, an extra copy of the Vizastar 128 spreadsheet, and a golf program. I felt guilty; I couldn't
get all of this free, and though I had little cash, Mark trusted that I would send him a check later. The
meeting ended around 9:30, and I helped Ed bring his materials back to his car. He was pleased that it
was a productive meeting. Mark came out into the parking lot and remarked to us that he thought the
demo could have gone better. I reassured him that he had done an excellent job and that what he had
done was a training session for me to do a similar demo for FCUG. 

We talked a bit more about Commodore matters, and then I asked about the best way to head back to
the valley. Ed told me to follow his car and then I'd turn off at a certain point. I shook their hands, and
we jumped into our respective cars. As I followed Ed's car into the night, I thought that this was a good
group and that I should come to visit again.

Fremont, Union City, Newark, & Hayward Users Group (FUNHUG) P.O. Box 404 Fremont, CA
94537-404 (Note: This is also the address for the Commodore Hayward Users Group (CHUG))

Ed's Disks c/o Ed Hart 560 N. Abbott Ave. Milpitas, CA 95035 Phone: (408) 262-2389 

(From The Interface, newsletter of Fresno Commodore User Group via the Commodore Information
Center, http://home.att.net/~rmestel/commodore.html)