MMSTL - Tools of the Time

Shown below are some of the tools that went into the weekly production effort of the MMSTL, both hardware and software. Everybody's got their own preferences, and sometimes one machine is better for a job than another.

Atari was the brand behind much of what went into the MMSTL job, starting with the 1991-1992 season. Later, as we moved into the new milennium, there was a migration to IBM-based PCs.

THE COMPUTER
The Atari 520 ST (later upgraded to a 1040ST -- more RAM)
Atari's 520 ST business machine was a true workhorse, to say the least. The computer arrived on the market in the mid-1980s, but I didn't get mine until 1987. It was unique in that the user could purchase either a color (SC1224) or monochrome (SM124) monitor for it. The color monitor was very attractive and I got started with that model, but later I purchased the "black-and-white" SM124. The main difference for the user between the 2 monitors was that the color version only had a 40 character display for a line of text, which was typical of many computers of that time period. The SM124 monochrome version rendered an 80-character display with a little better resolution -- and for someone working more with producing documents, this was a better choice.

It would be wrong to go too far, however, without mentioning the predecessor to the (16-bit) Atari ST, and that was the 8-bit, Atari 800 computer. Even though the "800" wasn't used in the MMSTL, it was the "root" of my make-up in the areas of programming and desktop publishing, and was my most worthwhile career investment from an Information Technology perspective. I owned an Apple II Plus initially, which was a good machine in its own right. But even though the "II Plus" was promoted as a 'bench-mark' computer, being an improved model over the previous Apple I and Apple II computers, I still encountered a number of performance issues with it, mainly involving 3 different, but essential hardware problems (RAM, power supply, and keyboard) in a relatively short time that made it unreliable for the amount of usage I would be putting it through.

Before I bought the Apple, I had seen the Atari 800 at "Computer Age" -- a store on Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, Maryland -- and I was pretty impressed with what I saw. So, after having the issues mentioned above, I followed up and made the purchase. After I got the Atari machine home and used it for the first time, everything seemed right with it. Eventually, the computer proved that it would be unphased by a heavy workload. But reliability was only one area in which the machine excelled. It was a lot less expensive for one thing, and it had the ability to 'double' as a gaming machine which made it fun to use when a person was done with production and programming work. But of most significance for me was that it had a most enlightening version of the "Basic" computing language that was well ahead of its time, and it taught me a valuable and different programming approach that I was later able to use in 1996 (and beyond) when doing 'automation programming' for the MMSTL website. It's interesting to note that as late as the year 2019, I used a few of these programming nuances at my official job, which allowed the company to replace an outdated reporting system, and to create an interactive portal for data extraction from the web.

Shown here is the Atari 800. Notice in the 2nd picture that the middle flap pops open, and there are 2 receptacles for plug-in cartridges. The left slot was for the BASIC programming language cartridge, and the right port was for any supplemental cartridge for BASIC, or simply a plug-in slot for games like Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Missile Command, etc. The computer plugged into any TV set via a common RF modulator available at any store like Radio Shack. Another unique feature of the "800" was that it had a built-in, color-changing screen saver, for when the computer was idle but not turned off, to prevent "burn-in" on color TVs. Truly, a remarkable product.

Getting back to the Atari ST computer . . . this machine was practically indestructible. During its tenure of daily use from the early 1990s up to a little after the year 2000, only a minor toggle switch replacement had to be done, in the way of repairs. The amount of keystrokes banged out on the ST from the Travel League alone numbered well beyond the 3.5 million mark. The Atari line served me well up through the transition to the IBM PC era, when computers that were more suited for the Internet were necessary.

Shown here is the Atari 520ST. My upgrade to the 1040ST was primarily for the increase in RAM size from 512K to 1024K (1 megabyte). Other conveniences with the 1040ST upgrade were that the 3-1/2" floppy disk drive was built-in to the computer, and the "1040" also had built-in Midi ports. An article in one of the PC magazines of that era reported that the band, Fleetwood Mac, was one of the musical groups using an ST computer, making use of its Midi functionality.

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
The "Basic" programming language wasn't specific to just one type of computer or operating system. When I was in high school, there was a standard version of the language for the students. After home PCs hit the market, there were several variations that were available to the public. For the Apple II Plus, I believe the term for its Basic language was Applesoft, which I learned first for home PCs, while in the IBM world, I learned QBasic and GW-Basic in the early going. Atari had its own versions for its 8-bit and 16-bit machines. The pic on the left below, was the plug-in BASIC Language cartridge for the Atari 800, and on the right was the Atari ST's, GFA Basic, which was a forerunner of Microsoft's Visual Basic of the 1990s.



DESKTOP PUBLISHING
In the days of the Atari 800, I learned the basics of Desktop Publishing from Broderbund's "Print Shop". Print Shop was a software package that ran on the Atari machine which allowed the user to print flyers and documents. Basic text and headlines could be formatted in boldface, italics, underlining, and other features, and clip art (cartoon) images could be intermingled into the document. Shown below are a few links to weekly highlights sheets that I produced for my Wednesday Night 585 Mixed league, using the Print Shop program. Since it was something new for the bowlers during that early age of home computers, the members liked the supplement to the official league secretary's standings sheet. Evelyn Trammell was the secretary, and she was very accommodating each week in which I'd call her to get the notable scores.

Wednesday 585 Mixed League (Sample 1)
Wednesday 585 Mixed League (Sample 2)
Wednesday 585 Mixed League (Sample 3)

Atari's desktop publishing brochure


CALAMUS
The most used software package in my library was by far a desktop publishing package for the Atari ST entitled, "CALAMUS". The program was introduced to the North American market in 1988 by a German company called Ditek International, and to the best of my knowledge, it was designed for the Atari computer. The software was powerful, but very easy to use, after you got past the initial start-up, and was a perfect solution for the weekly standings sheets and booklets of the MMSTL.

Ditek International was bought out by a Canadian company called MGI in the mid-1990s, and so the desktop publishing package was subsequently aimed at the Windows computer market, starting with Windows 95 owners. I used my Atari ST until a little bit after the year 2000, but acquired a copy of the IBM version of Calamus, and used it up until the end of my tenure as secretary in 2006.

Calamus for the Atari

Calamus for the IBM PC

PRINTERS
As secretary of the Mens Maryland Suburban Traveling League, I went through several pieces of hardware to make the job as easy as possible. I can't exactly remember what printer I first used in the 1991-1992 season -- it might have been a dot matrix printer called "NLQ", which in general terms in the computer field, stood for "Near Letter Quality". But somewhere along the line, I had a Hewlett Packard Deskjet. But it wasn't long until I found it necessary to invest in a pretty new technology of the time, that being a laser printer. After researching what was available, once again Atari had a very sensible solution for printers with its own version of a laser printer -- the Atari SLM804. This was a black and white model, since color lasers were not in existence for home users yet. What made this laser printer different from the competition was that it didn't have its own memory for printing pages -- it depended on the memory in the computer, which made the print time go a lot faster -- there was no waiting for the printer to build a page in its memory, and since I had upgraded my computer's RAM to 1 megabyte from its original 512K, there was no delay in getting a Calamus page printed onto paper.

Later in the 1990s, after converting to a booklet format for the weekly standings sheet, I wanted the cover of the booklet to be similar to that of a magazine, which meant using color for the front. Inkjet printers were popular at the time, and Epson was a strong player in that market, and so I purchased an Epson Stylus Color 800, around 1996. The Epson inkjet printers could produce really striking sharpness and colors if you used special paper that they sold, and for a few issues, this was used for the covers. But after a while, I noticed that the stationery stores had available a type of cardstock, advertised as either 65 lb. or 110 lb. thickness. The 65 lb. paper was a little on the rough side, and the 110 lb. was noticeably smoother, and these made the covers of the weekly booklet have a really nice feel to them. However, after a full bowling season of running over 100 covers per week through the Epson printer, I pretty much wore out the rollers on the printer. It was at that time that I went a different route, which was using colored paper in the Atari laser printer for the covers.

Atari's SLM804 laser printer

The Epson Stylus Color 800 inkjet printer

In the era of the 2000s, after migrating to an IBM-based computer, the cost of laser printers had come down in price, and I eventually purchased a high-speed black-and-white laser printer for the home -- the HP Laserjet 4300. The printer was amazingly fast, printing 45 pages a minute, which made it very feasible to print all the copies of the booklets in-house. Using the colored paper for the cover was still okay, but after a while, I looked into the color laser printer option, and HP had a model that was relatively cheap -- the HP Color Laserjet 3500, which was pretty fast for color lasers at the time, sporting 12 pages per minute. And so, near the end of the 2003-2004 season, the Travel League booklets were fashioned with color covers.

The Hewlett Packard Color Laserjet 3500

The Hewlett Packard Laserjet 4300 printer

MISCELLANEOUS
Shown below is the software package, "ComputerEyes", which was used for capturing still images from video filming of the bowlers.



As referenced in the section, "Text Webcasting", shown below was the HP IPAQ/Nokia phone setup:



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