Allentown Bethlehem Easton Atari Computer Enthusiasts

[_The Doctor__]

So from 8/82 on up is needed, The newsletter started as a bi-monthly publication and increased from there. It's interesting that this issue includes the start date of the formal ABE's Aces club being April of 1982 and other tidbits. The shift to ST becoming more prominent, 8 bit still in there though in 1986.

[zzip]

5 hours ago, moonlight_mile said:

I remember an early issue was (I think) the president used club funds to purchase a desktop publishing set up. (Laser printer I think was the big expense) and he was keeping it at his house and/or using it for his business or something like that. 
 

But I do remember that was a big to do at one of the last meetings I was at. 

If it's the same guy I'm thinking of, it would not shock me.   Seemed like the kind of person where everything had to be the best.   While most clubs would print their newsletters on dot-matrix printers and photocopy them,  he insisted on having them printed on laser and duplicated by a professional print shop iwith four-color printing.   Sure it was one of the best-looking club newsletters out there, but wasn't cheap!

[+x=usr(1536)]

On 6/3/2023 at 8:06 PM, Allan said:

I recently got some issues of the Allentown Bethlehem Easton Atari Computer Enthusiasts newsletter and will be posting them soon.

 

Here is their member's handbook.

Just curious, since 99.999% of my Atari Users' Group experience was outside of the US: was this a common thing here?  We had the usual two-pager run off on a dot matrix printer and that listed who did what within the club, but didn't really get into meeting structure, committees, etc.

[moonlight_mile]

2 hours ago, zzip said:

If it's the same guy I'm thinking of, it would not shock me.   Seemed like the kind of person where everything had to be the best.   While most clubs would print their newsletters on dot-matrix printers and photocopy them,  he insisted on having them printed on laser and duplicated by a professional print shop iwith four-color printing.   Sure it was one of the best-looking club newsletters out there, but wasn't cheap!

I mean I was in my mid teens and oblivious to most of the shenanigans. But being a young kid, an ST was way out of my reach so the 8-bit was my comfort zone. 
 

Personally, I don’t remember anything from the meetings outside of the auditorium, the cafeteria (I think) where a “swap meet” was held and the lobby outside the auditorium. 

[zzip]

25 minutes ago, moonlight_mile said:

I mean I was in my mid teens and oblivious to most of the shenanigans. But being a young kid, an ST was way out of my reach so the 8-bit was my comfort zone. 

Same, I was a teen with an 8-bit with an interest of getting an ST eventually.   

 

I think it was the first meeting ABE's ACEs meeting I attended where the dust-up happened.   I remember a squabble between 'that guy' who was up on stage and some people in the audience.   Had no idea what I walked into or what it was all about.   I don't recall if people physically walked out, but soon after the meeting they announced LVAUG.  Since I had just paid my dues,  I wasn't interested in joining the other group.   

 

39 minutes ago, moonlight_mile said:

Personally, I don’t remember anything from the meetings outside of the auditorium, the cafeteria (I think) where a “swap meet” was held and the lobby outside the auditorium. 

The other room might have been the cafeteria.  For some reason I can remember the meetings there better, but it's all pretty hazy.   

 

I do remember one time they a couple of guys who I think were brothers who were demonstrating emulators on the ST.   One had written an Atari 8-bit emulator and the other wrote an Apple II emulator.   I don't think the 8-bit one was ST Xformer, but could be wrong.   And I don't remember an Apple II emulator ever being released.  But it was there and it was working!   

[moonlight_mile]

43 minutes ago, zzip said:

Same, I was a teen with an 8-bit with an interest of getting an ST eventually.   

 

I think it was the first meeting ABE's ACEs meeting I attended where the dust-up happened.   I remember a squabble between 'that guy' who was up on stage and some people in the audience.   Had no idea what I walked into or what it was all about.   I don't recall if people physically walked out, but soon after the meeting they announced LVAUG.  Since I had just paid my dues,  I wasn't interested in joining the other group.   

 

The other room might have been the cafeteria.  For some reason I can remember the meetings there better, but it's all pretty hazy.   

 

I do remember one time they a couple of guys who I think were brothers who were demonstrating emulators on the ST.   One had written an Atari 8-bit emulator and the other wrote an Apple II emulator.   I don't think the 8-bit one was ST Xformer, but could be wrong.   And I don't remember an Apple II emulator ever being released.  But it was there and it was working!   

Now that you mention it, I seem to remember the dust up. 
 

Oh I would have loved an ST at that time but there was no way I was ever getting one.  I had to buy all my own 8-bit equip. Sadly, my dad was a teacher who was always crying poor. Lol. 
 

Needless to say I have all the st and 8 bit equip I can handle. Lol. 
 

I know Jim Finley was one of the originators of the defections to Lvaug and I looked at one of the newsletters and there was an ad for MicroCottage there. That was finley’s computer shop. 
 

 

[MrMaddog]

34 minutes ago, moonlight_mile said:

Now that you mention it, I seem to remember the dust up. 
 

Oh I would have loved an ST at that time but there was no way I was ever getting one.  I had to buy all my own 8-bit equip. Sadly, my dad was a teacher who was always crying poor. Lol. 

 

 

I was in the same situtation as a teen, had an 8-bit computer at home while wishing I had a Macintosh used in high school classes.  I was able to get my STe as a graduation gift and only because my mom made two years worth of payments.  Till then I had to rely on Antic coverdisks for all my software needs.  Living in Central PA at the time there just was no place to buy anything for the Atari 8-bit except for driving to malls to get XEGS games.  There were a couple of mail order places in the area (Lyco & CMO) but they already closed up by 1990 and I stopped receiving Antic by then.

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

I do remember one time they a couple of guys who I think were brothers who were demonstrating emulators on the ST.   One had written an Atari 8-bit emulator and the other wrote an Apple II emulator.   I don't think the 8-bit one was ST Xformer, but could be wrong.   And I don't remember an Apple II emulator ever being released.  But it was there and it was working!   

 

That would have been awesome to see!  Still too slow for games but it would have been nice to at least transfer like say DIF files fron SynCalc to something more powerful on the ST or at least still run Atari BASIC programs like ST Xformer.

[_The Doctor__]

there's Our BBS which eventually supported LVAUG only. RIP Dear Friend. I'll have it back up one day. Your' signed Marina Sirtis pictures will always be remembered. This was when Hardcopy carried info for both Clubs. I wonder what became of Joe Souder from Forks Township. He was a good guy as well.

Edited June 7, 2023 by _The Doctor__

[Geister]

I was the Librarian for ABE's ACEs before the dust-up which was the meeting where I resigned.  Jim Finley and I ran a booth at the first Atari show in 84 where we demonstrated the ICD MIO interface.  Does anybody know if Jim is still with us?  I lost track of everything around 85-86.  I tried to send some business Jim's way from Air Problems and Comedies but they screwed hm around so badly that I was too embarrassed to show my face in the store after that. 

[moonlight_mile]

1 hour ago, _The Doctor__ said:

there's Our BBS which eventually supported LVAUG only. RIP Dear Friend. I'll have it back up one day. Your' signed Marina Sirtis pictures will always be remembered. This was when Hardcopy carried info for both Clubs. I wonder what became of Joe Souder from Forks Township. He was a good guy as well.

I remember Joe.  He was younger than I was. Probably 14/15 in 1987. I remember a friend of mine and I went up to visit him in Easton. 
 

He would call me every day and we had very little to talk about. I think we would ask what’s new about 1o times each conversation. 
 

He was a nice guy, as I remember I was always bugging him for an intro to his sister. But then again that could have been any number of people I used to talk to. Lol

[_The Doctor__]

Yup Joe was young,

Funny thing, I met the sister twice, but I was focused on the computer and electronics stuff. Met his cousin as well (College student, security guard, Dunkin' Donuts). Remember Dunkin donuts being delivered to me by the carton load for a while also.

I think the sister had red hair, might have been Becky? and the relative might have been Patrick? I can't clearly recall, but they were all very nice people. I think the dad did electronics work.

Edited June 8, 2023 by _The Doctor__

[+Stephen]

You guys were lucky.  I was too young to attend any meetings there may have been in my area.  By 89 when I could attend a local BBS meeting at the vocational school by me, the 8-bits were well past done so there was nothing for me except look at the boring new PCs.  By 91 when my 1050 died, the system was packed up and I had nothing until we got our 486 PC in 94.

[Geister]

Back before the club split up my wife got WFMZ, the local station where she worked, to do a piece on computer clubs.  I contacted all the clubs I could find in the area and wrangled a room at Honeywell (I think) for the venue.  I remember that we were running the Atari demo with the robot and spaceship which surprised a bunch of the Commodore guys.  The LVCC sent a guy with a Compaq luggable that had so many expansion cards jammed in it that it blew the circuit breaker every time he powered it on.  We had to shut down all the other computers to do the video about the luggable, and shut the luggable down to do the rest of the computers.  I asked my wife to get a video tape of the show, I don't know what happened to it, or if we even got it.  I'm pretty sure Jim Finley was interviewed for the Atari part of the piece.

[moonlight_mile]

11 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

Yup Joe was young,

Funny thing, I met the sister twice, but I was focused on the computer and electronics stuff. Met his cousin as well (College student, security guard, Dunkin' Donuts). Remember Dunkin donuts being delivered to me by the carton load for a while also.

I think the sister had red hair, might have been Becky? and the relative might have been Patrick? I can't clearly recall, but they were all very nice people. I think the dad did electronics work.

No clue what his sister’s name was. I don’t remember if we got a glimpse of her or not when we visited. 
 

I am pretty sure at that time he was like me when I started out. 8ooxl, 1o5o, with a 1o3o modem.  By 87 I was looking down on 3oo baud, but he managed to get a hold of me and we were pretty good friends for that summer. 
 

I don’t know if he has kids but a souder is always popping up in my Facebook friends suggestion. I’ll have to check it out next time it does. 

[zzip]

16 hours ago, moonlight_mile said:

Oh I would have loved an ST at that time but there was no way I was ever getting one.  I had to buy all my own 8-bit equip. Sadly, my dad was a teacher who was always crying poor. Lol. 

Yeah I could never ask my parents for such a thing.   But I had a paper route at the time and kept thinking 'someday'.    But then someday came sooner than I expected because in 87 Atari released the STfm line where you could finally buy an ST without a monitor and use a TV.   I think it was less than $400 for the 520 version.   I was able to save enough from the paper route after a month or three.   Was even able to spring the extra $99 for a monochrome monitor.

 

16 hours ago, moonlight_mile said:

I know Jim Finley was one of the originators of the defections to Lvaug and I looked at one of the newsletters and there was an ad for MicroCottage there. That was finley’s computer shop. 

Yeah I remember, up on MacArthur Road.   Didn't he run it with someone else from the club?   I think first name was Mike. 

 

16 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

there's Our BBS which eventually supported LVAUG only. RIP Dear Friend. I'll have it back up one day. Your' signed Marina Sirtis pictures will always be remembered.

I have a hard time remembering the names of the BBSes I used to visited.    I'm sure I used Help Key because I remember there being a BBS full of the ABEs ACEs members.    Don't think I used Starship.   Might have been outside my calling area (didn't want to run up my parents phone bill ).   Warehouse rings a bell, although I seem to remember that being a "shiver me timbers" kind of site ('Ware' is right in the name haha).  If it's the BBS I'm thinking of, would be surprised they were affiliated with LVAUG.

 

14 hours ago, moonlight_mile said:

I remember Joe.  He was younger than I was. Probably 14/15 in 1987. I remember a friend of mine and I went up to visit him in Easton. 

I'm pretty sure Joe was the same grade level as me, so that would make him about 15/16 in 87.  I think he was also driving a Volkswagen of some sort to the meetings-  the family were VW diehards.   I also visited him once or twice.   Didn't realize he was so popular    

 

14 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

I think the sister had red hair, might have been Becky?

I think she did have red or reddish hair.   Don't recall her name, but she kind of looked like a Becky I guess 

[Geister]

MicroCottage was wholey owned and operated by Jim.  I don't know of a Mike other than myself that was involved with the club, but that was some time ago.

[moonlight_mile]

I did hear that Ed Bachman may have been involved with the business or maybe it was just something else they were involved in and had a falling out.  At least I think it was Edba. 

[zzip]

45 minutes ago, Geister said:

MicroCottage was wholey owned and operated by Jim.  I don't know of a Mike other than myself that was involved with the club, but that was some time ago.

 

26 minutes ago, moonlight_mile said:

I did hear that Ed Bachman may have been involved with the business or maybe it was just something else they were involved in and had a falling out.  At least I think it was Edba. 

Well what I recall was that I wanted a certain new game for my ST,  I couldn't find it locally.   Microcottage was able to special order it for me,  When I called, I don't think I dealt with Jim, I'm pretty sure it was someone else from the club and I had an impression he was co-owner.   Maybe it was Ed, but I picture a different guy when I think of that name.   Or maybe I'm just getting people mixed up.   

[_The Doctor__]

Ed Bachman was an excellent coder/programmer.

Edited June 8, 2023 by _The Doctor__

[Geister]

Yes he was.  I wanted to do a move command for Sparta Dos and did a basic proof of concept  Ed whipped up an assembly version in a couple days.  Good stuff.  Have I asked you about his whereabouts?

[Geister]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

 

Well what I recall was that I wanted a certain new game for my ST,  I couldn't find it locally.   Microcottage was able to special order it for me,  When I called, I don't think I dealt with Jim, I'm pretty sure it was someone else from the club and I had an impression he was co-owner.   Maybe it was Ed, but I picture a different guy when I think of that name.   Or maybe I'm just getting people mixed up.   

Jim's sons did work for him for a while before they started their own consulting businesses.

[Atari_Ace]

On 6/7/2023 at 7:27 AM, Allan said:

****** If anybody has any more of these please scan them or let me borrow them so I can scan them and get them back to you quickly. *****

https://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/newsletters/abe_ace/abe_ace.html

 

has a few 1985 issues I haven't seen elsewhere, plus many of the ones you just posted to archive.org.

[+Allan]

Here is another bunch of pages from the Allentown Bethlehem Easton's Atari Computer Enthusiasts user group. It looks like a packet that may have been given to new users but I am not 100% sure of this. It also included pamphlets from CompuServe and Delphi which I put up on Archive on different pages. It includes a nice index with descriptions of the club's public domain disks.

 

https://archive.org/details/allentown-bethlehem-eastons-atari-computer-enthusiasts-user-package/mode/2up

[Agent570]

On 6/11/2023 at 1:44 PM, Atari_Ace said:

https://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/newsletters/abe_ace/abe_ace.html

 

has a few 1985 issues I haven't seen elsewhere, plus many of the ones you just posted to archive.org.

Those are mine and wow, for a while there I thought I was the only one who actually held on to those.  🙂

 

It's great so to see you folks from the old club days.  I was a member for a few years, from when the meetings were in a school cafeteria, right up the Allentown Expo where the mayor gave the club the key to the city.  I also ran the ST SIG for a few months.  My problem was that I was only 15 when I joined the club and lived 45 minutes away or I would have tried to get more involved.

 

It was a great club in many ways but I have never to this day seen bickering and back-biting like I saw in those last few meetings.  The debate I still clearly remember was a half-hour argument in the auditorium about whether a computer program should be used for the monthly drawings or should a kid draw the tickets out of a hat.  I was also helping out at the Expo and saw enough shit go down during that event to write a book (much of it is mentioned in the Expo issue).  I never went back after that.

 

I still miss Jim Finley - that guy was an absolute hardware genius and I clearly remember ICD grabbing him to help run their booth at the Expo.

 

I also have some great memories of a certain un-named board member openly copying floppies right on the sales floor at Sears in the Whitehall Mall while he was supposed to be working, he was actually the guy who told me about the club in the first place.

 

On 6/7/2023 at 7:00 PM, Geister said:

I was the Librarian for ABE's ACEs before the dust-up which was the meeting where I resigned.

I remember you well and you always did an excellent job, it's a bit late but thanks for your efforts.

[Geister]

I wish I had not put all o myself into the job I got as a result of my time with the club.  If I had come up for air occasionally, I might have heard about the new 8-bit club and stayed involved.  Sadly, I felt I had something to prove as a lone non-degreed person in a company full of paper hangers.  The best thing I got out of that job was a pension that allowed me to actually retire. 

 

The guy at Sears was probably Ralph who also brought me into the club and got me a job at Sears.

Edited June 26, 2023 by Geister
Final thought.