Articles and Columns
by Bruce Thomas

One thing I have always maintained is that I would have loved to have had a Commodore 64 computer in High School in the 70's. I took typing classes and used my father's old typewriter to write my term papers and reports. This made a marked improvement in my assignment quality as my handwriting is fairly awful. Of course, the downside of a typewriter is that you can't save work for later editing which makes for a lot of re-typing. I like to write more than I like to type.

Shortly after I did get my Commodore 64 I was happy to see the listing for SpeedScript in Compute!'s Gazette. I used this Word Processor for a number of years before I got GEOS and GeoWrite. Like a lot of other people I was disappointed with the performance of GeoWrite and eventually settled on The Write Stuff from Busy Bee Software as my preferred Word Processor.

Of course, what got me using GEOS in the first place was GeoPublish and I used it for monthly newsletters for our Computer Club, our childrens' School Parent Association and an annual Family Newsletter as well. Importing my Write Stuff work into GEOS allowed me to get the best of TWS and the best of GEOS for all of my newsletters. The later addition of a 4 Mhz Schnedler TurboMaster Accelerator and then the 20 Mhz CMD SuperCPU improved the speed of GEOS enough that I switched over to creating my files for newsletters with GeoWrite to avoid the extra conversion steps necessary when using TWS.

When the CUE User Group disbanded in 1992 I still had the desire to write about GEOS. It isn't that I feel I know the system better than others or that I do unique things with the programs. I just found various ways to get things done out of necessity to meet monthly deadlines and felt that others would benefit if I passed on my experiences.

Over the next couple of years I did not have a lot of time to submit articles but when I finally found the time I sent a few articles to Willis Patten and his GEOS Publication. When Scott Eggleston needed a new GEOS columnist for The UnderGround I submitted a couple of articles to him. About this time I also sent some articles to Bryan Pease for his Gatekeeper publication (only one was published in Issue #6 and then the publication seems to have ceased). When the Underground folded and joined forces with Jeff Jones at The LoadStar Letter I submitted a few articles to Jeff and at the same time started sending articles to Doug Cotton at Creative Micro Designs for inclusion in Commodore World.

When Commodore World needed a new GEOS columnist I sent more articles to Doug and continued sending the Graphic Interpretations column to GO64! when it took over publication of Commodore World from CMD. The English language version of GO64! did not last long enough to use up all of my articles and some have been printed since in the German only version (these appear here for the first time in English). During these last few years I have also sent a few pieces to Dale Sidebottom for inclusion in his LUCKY Report User Group Newsletter and the new UCUGA Commodore Digest. There have also been a few submissions to the Commodore MaiLink - newsletter of the Meeting 64/128 Users Through The Mail User Group.

I believe I have the majority of these articles and columns and they can be found below. Not only are the pieces presented in HTML format they are also in the BruceT\Files folder in TEXT (.TXT) format and in Converted (.CVT) format (use in Windows with Maurice Randall's geoWriteImport) plus they are in geoWrite format in the D64 images. The D64 images have the added bonus of holding the accompanying graphics where appropriate. A few of the articles also have their own D64 images containing related files and demos.

These five D64 images in the BruceT\Files folder contain the original GeoWrite articles. 

BTDISK1.D64 holds articles 1 - 6 with pictures
BTDISK2.D64 holds articles 7 - 12 with pictures
BTDISK3.D64 holds articles 13 - 27 with pictures
BTDISK4.D64 holds articles 28 - 46 and 49 with pictures (#47 and #48 are reprints of #33 and #34)
BTDISK5.D64 holds article 50 plus the GeoPublish files used for articles #10 and #11 (you will need Roma and Mega Roma fonts to view these properly) along with the handy utility GetItWrite V2.0 and the Paint Pages+ and Paint Overlay+ files as mentioned in article #9.

I hope you enGEOy these pieces and that they provide some understanding of the way I use GEOS and some of the many wonderful programs that you will find on this CD. Keep in mind that these articles are anywhere up to 7 years old so any addresses mentioned are not guaranteed to still be accurate. 

These articles are provided on the CD for personal use by the registered purchaser of the geoSpecific CD. If a purchaser wishes to use these articles in a User Group Newsletter or similar publication then written permission must be received from Bruce Thomas prior to any such use.  See Index.html or Readme.txt for contact info.

enGEOy your Commodore!

Bruce Thomas


GEOS Publication

1.Landscape Printouts (07/96) - GPLAND.TXT
2.Drawbacks of GEOS use (12/96) - GPLIMIT.TXT
3.Organizing GEOS (03/97) - GPORG.TXT

Commodore MaiLink - Newsletter of Meeting 64/128 Users Through the Mail User Group

4.Speeding up GEOS (05/97) - CMSPEED.TXT
5.Laser Printing (07/98) - CMLASER.TXT
6.Waterfall (07/98) - CMWATER.TXT

The Underground

7.GeoZone - Introduction (Issue #13) - UGINTRO.TXT
8.geoSpecific - GeoPrint / GeoLabel (Issue #14) - UGREVIEW.TXT

The Gatekeeper

9.Landscape GeoCALC Printouts (Issue #6 12/1996) - GKLAND.TXT

The LoadStar Letter

10.Improving GeoPublish Part 1 (Issue #45) - LLIMPGP1.TXT
11.Improving GeoPublish Part 2 (Issue #46) - LLIMPGP2.TXT
12.GEOS Paint Drivers - cheap DTP plus more! (Issue #51) - LLGPCOL1.TXT
13.Multiple Columns Output with GEOS Paint Overlay (Issue #52) - LLGPCOL2.TXT
14.GEOS - Why Bother? (Issue #66) - LLYBOTHR.TXT
15.GeoChart (Issue #74) - LLGCHART.TXT

Commodore World

16.GEOS and Y2K (Top Tips Issue #10) - CWY2K.TXT
17.Mouse Matters (Hard Tips Issue #17) - CWMOUSE.TXT
18.GeoFile - A Dynamic Partner for GEOS Users (Feature Article Issue #19) - CWGFILE.TXT
19.EnGEOyable Entertainment - Playing Games with GEOS (Feature Article Issue #20) - CWGAMES.TXT
20.Graphic Interpretation - Laser Magic (Issue #22) - CWLASER.TXT
21.Graphic Interpretation - GEOS: For a Good Time (Issue #23) - CWTIME.TXT
22.Wheels 64 - The only way to lay a Patch (Feature Article Issue #23) - CWWEEL64.TXT
23.Graphic Interpretation - Useful Utilities (Issue #24) - CWUSEFUL.TXT
24.The Laser Lovers' Disk (Review Issue #24) - CWLLDRVW.TXT
25.Graphic Interpretation - To CMD or not to CMD (Issue #25) - CWTOCMD.TXT
26.Wheels 128: GUI Driving Power (Feature Article Issue #25) - CWWEEL28.TXT

GO64!/Commodore World

27.Graphic Interpretation - geoSpecific: Welcome to the Future (Issue 02/2000) - GOFUTURE.TXT
28.Graphic Interpretation - The Visitor (Issue 04/2000) - GOVISIT.TXT
29.Graphic Interpretation - Demo Mania (Issue 05/2000) - GODEMO.TXT
Pix and files - DEMOMANA.D64 and DEMOMANB.D64
30.Graphic Interpretation - A Date to Remember (Issue 07/2000) - GODATE.TXT
31.Graphic Interpretation - GeoMerge: Formally Yours (Issue 08/2000) - GOMERGE.TXT
32.Graphic Interpretation - Scraps and Browsers (Issue 09/2000) - GOSCRAPS.TXT
33.Graphic Interpretation - GeoDOS Part 1 (Issue 06/2001) - GOGDOS1.TXT
34.Graphic Interpretation - GeoDOS Part 2 (Issue 07/2001) - GOGDOS2.TXT
35.Graphic Interpretation - Animation (Issue 08/2001) - GOANIM8.TXT
Pix and files - ANIM8.D64
36.Graphic Interpretation - Let me Count the Ways (Issue 10/2001) - GOCOUNT.TXT

The LUCKY Report

37.Creation of the COPS Mailing List (Issue 12/1998) - LRCREATE.TXT
38.Wheels - One Year Down the Road (Issue 07/1999) - LRONEYR.TXT
39.Catch the Wave (Issue 01/2000) - LRCATCH.TXT
40.Hang Ten Baby! (Issue 03/2000) - LRHANG10.TXT
41.Animations (Issue 09/2001) - LRANIM8.TXT
Pix and files - ANIM8.D64
42.GeoPrint / GeoLabel (Issue 09/2001) - LRPRINT.TXT
43.Mover 3.0 Disk (Issue 09/2001) - LRMOVER.TXT

UCUGA Commodore Digest

44.Fall Back in Time (Issue 01/2002) - CDBACK.TXT
45.GeoDOS Part 1 (Issue 04/2002) - GOGDOS1.TXT
46.GeoDOS Part 2 (Issue 05/2002) - GOGDOS2.TXT
47.Garage Sale Poster (Issue 08/2002) - CDPOSTER.T

UnPublished so far

48.Hear This - UPHEAR.TXT
Pix and files - HEARTHIS.D64
49.Conversions - UPCONV.TXT
50.Problems, Patches and Fixing Things - UPOOPS.TXT
