The SACS Report was a public-access cable television show produced by the Southern Alleghenies Computer Society of Johnstown, PA, in the early 1990s. For more background, please see the entry for Episode 2.
In Episode 6, the last episode in my collection, I step up the wardrobe, and wear a dress shirt and necktie, along with the requisite patterned socks. The reason for the fancy duds? My guest, George Bradley, Area Manager for WordPerfect Corporation, who wore a suit.
The SACS Report was a public-access cable television show produced by the Southern Alleghenies Computer Society of Johnstown, PA, in the early 1990s. For more background, please see the entry for Episode 2.
Episode 5 aired February 3, 1993. In this episode, we have another specimen from my awesome sweater collection: a white V-neck item, paired once again with aggressively patterned socks. My guests in this episode are Jery Allison and Geoff Ford, fellow SACS officers who discuss the organization's plans for the new year.
Jery, who was the sysop of a local BBS, provided an overview of the local BBS scene, while Geoff announced an upcoming BBS demo day at the Galleria Mall. We also discuss "the next biggest thing in computers," the CD-ROM and multimedia. Jery opines that CD-ROM drives have become so inexpensive that anyone can afford one... watch the episode to find out how cheap Geoff's new drive was!
The panelists also discuss the sizes (physical and capacity) of the latest hard drives, and compare these modern marvels with the primitive disks of yesteryear. I lament dealers who try to sell customers "more computer than they need." What home user could possibly make good use of those new Pentium chips?
On a more touching note, Jery recalls participating in the SaudiNet email system during the 1990–91 Gulf War, relaying messages from home to the troops, and back. This email system was technologically similar to FidoNet, which Jery also discusses. Imagine sending email to someone around the world, and having them read it in just a few hours or days!
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/ \
/|oo \
(_| /_)
_`@/_ \ _
| | \ \\
| (*) | \ ))
______ |__U__| / \//
/ FIDO \ _//|| _\ /
(________) (_/(_|(____/
The SACS Report was a public-access cable television show produced by the Southern Alleghenies Computer Society of Johnstown, PA, in the early 1990s. For more background, please see the entry for Episode 2.
In this episode, we see the debut of my awesome sweater collection, featuring a button-up V-neck sweater over a turtleneck. My patterned socks also figure prominently in this episode. Unfortunately, the age of the VHS tape results in extremely poor video quality—the worst of the series—and my stunning wardrobe is mostly obscured. The good news is that you’ll be able to devote your attention instead to my panel of guests, Craig Haynal, Mike MacInnis, and Ben Hauger.
The SACS Report was a public-access cable television show produced by the Southern Alleghenies Computer Society of Johnstown, PA, in the early 1990s. For more background, please see the entry for Episode 2.
I was the moderator of the show, and apparently nobody ever told me not to wear the same outfit twice in a row when you’re on TV.
My guest for Episode 3 was Ben Hauger, who demonstrated an Apple IIgs, including its music-playing abilities (just $50 for a stereo upgrade!) and a variety of games and demos. Also: The difficulty of finding the floppy disk you need, and the ability to have more than 16 colors on the screen at once.
In the early 1990s, when I was in high school, I was a member of a community computer club. In those days the ‘tubes were short, and your online community mostly consisted of nearby people who could make local calls to the same BBSes. We met monthly for demonstrations of the latest hardware and software. As a form of community outreach and education, we put together a show on the latest computing news. This was before “podcasts” and “live streaming,” so we used the 20th-century equivalent: public access cable television. Think Leo Laporte meets Wayne and Garth.
I was selected as the moderator of the show, presumably on the basis of my outstanding sweater collection. Just as Star Trek’s pilot episode was missing Captain Kirk, Episode 1 of the SACS Report did not feature yours truly as the moderator. I’d rather poke fun at myself, so I’m starting this series with Episode 2.
The video quality of the footage varies from poor to adequate. The episodes, being an irreplaceable relic of my youth, were lovingly archived at SLP speed on a VHS tape previously used to record baseball games. The audio quality of this episode improves after a couple of minutes. My archive consists of 6 episodes. I assume it is complete, but I’m not certain. I’ve simply assigned the numbers 1-6 to the episodes on my tape.
Episode 2 features two guests, Craig Haynal and Mike Dom, presenting the hottest computer games of the era, including The Sims, Wolfenstein 3D, and Los Dados Afortunados. Revisiting this episode is appropriate, as Intel recently demonstrated a raytraced, cloud-computed remake of Wolfenstein 3D. A massively multiplayer, raytraced, 3D update of Los Dados Afortunados is expected in Q2 2011, and should give Portal 2 una carrera por su dinero.