Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 02/05/90

	The meeting was called to order at 19:32 by Rob.
	
	In attendance were 
		Voting members: Barr3y Jaspan <bjaspan>, Andre' DeHon
<amdehon>, Brett S Reid <blubaron>, David R Williams <dougie>, Derek
Atkins <warlord>, Rev. Linda L. Julien <leira>, Sheung L Li <sli>,
Michael L Barrow <mlbarrow>, Andrew H Cytron <tron>, Jenifer P.
Tidwell <jtidwell> (late).
		Associate members: Jean Marie Diaz <ambar>, Stanley R
Zanarotti <srz>, Ken Raeburn <raeburn>.
		Non-voting members: (none).
		Prospectives: Weip Chen <tanis>, Christine A Goddard
<cagoddar>, Chee Chew <web>, Jeff Bigler <jcb>, Li Shu <lishu>, Wes
Carroll <wlcarrol>.
		Guests: Beth Kevles <kevles>.

	Treasurer's Report:

	What treasurer?  Not here....

	CokeComm Report:

	Tried to order today; no answer.  Barr3y will try again.
He'll order everything people have asked for, so don't flame him....
Bank story not told for lack of ending.

	Chairman's Report:

	Lots of fun yesterday.  Taylor Hayward (uses mac a lot, causes
flamage) used SIPB membership card (filled it out himself) to prove
he's part of MIT community so he could get piano practice room key.
We got complaints because it was overdue.  Rob had a nice little chat
with him yesterday.  Suggestions have been made to make him persona
non grata.  He's left SIPB for Thistle.

	Nomination of Wes Carroll for membership.  Election two weeks
from tonight, since officer elections are next week.

	Office Report:

	Drawer confiscated from Dave Jedlinsky <opus>, now used for
course handouts.
	Jeff Bigler will get us another box for soda cans.
	Doc rack: Thanks to Athena, we have a copy of their doc rack.
Lots of exciting stuff.  (Beth Kevles suggested it, Sharon helped make
it happen.)  Rob looked it over, discovered that lots of the docs were
not useful or duplicated (often with better copies) elsewhere in the
office (including some out-of-date copies of our docs).  He gc'ed the
useless stuff, now we have one rack of useful stuff.
	We have a CD player!  Thanks, Opurt!  Service contract &c for
three years, too.  Tape player is mostly dead; some talk of playing
with it to attempt repairs.  (No service contract to invalidate.)
	Found a desk with drawers in it.  tron will handle allocation.

	Athena Report:

	Dialup servers should be officially announced ~ 15 February.
	Jean reports problems with `meta' key (always on) when using
Athena's dialup machines, about 50% of the time.  Parity problem in
the modem pool?  Some noisy modems or phone links too.
	The 750s are dying.  Aphrodite has about 25% of users, and few
original parts.
	Euterpe is down; look at info locker (on euterpe) for details.
	Zephyr in tty mode complains about lack of X display.  Where's
Marc so we can flame him?
	X11R4 works mostly well, except that VAX server thinks the
display about 15 feet wide.
	Athena is rearranging most office assignments, so the new set
of managers can have single window offices.  Beth K isn't moving.
Attendance at a recent meeting was rewarded with owl watches.
(Where's the fuzzball watch?)
	Peter Roden put out a report about Apple and Athena (Athena on
Mac/OS).  He was talking about Athena software under A/UX at the
SysDev meeting today.  Rob got a copy of the report last week at the
startup company he works for; it was announced to Athena staff today.
	Consultants will be in clusters for at least another 3 weeks.

	Computer Services:

	Motion to terminate; dies.
	Jenifer P. Tidwell <jtidwell> looked into getting a scanner.
$2000-$2500 for hardware; software situation is a mess.  She's seen it
available for the Mac; varying reports as to reliability.  More
details rattled off too quickly for me to get them down.
	Need to talk to IS about money.

	Telecommunications Report:

	We hope we won't have to support dialup for too much longer.
	A new Trailblazer (2400 baud) should be on bloom-beacon soon.
Have 3 modems from Coplex.

	Publications Report:

	New copies of Inessential LaTeX and Getting Started on Athena
are in office.
	Going to Graphic Arts is one of the most intellectually
rewarding an experience a prospective can have.  Helps to get votes at
election time too. :-)

	R/O Report:

	Nil.

	IAP Report:

	Over!  (Didn't notice it happening....)

	Other:

	Newbury's Comics stocks Maxell 8mm tapes.  Sony's are best,
slightly more expensive.  We were going to get some of these through
EECS, but they got shortchanged.
	Atari is coming out with an IBM compatible.
	Marc and Klee found a band saw in the machine room.  It now
hangs next to the User Ring in the office.

	Other Other:

	Commodore will be coming out with Sys5R4.
	XArkanoid and XCrystalQuest are coming along.
	Mail database for MH (keyed on subject, keywords, etc) is in
works by warlord.
	Jean's kitten is 8 pounds and 5 months.  Koosh kitten?
	Beth's friend's train game ("Software Engineer") is looking
for a developer to hack on it.  Speed of the train is dependent on
workstation type and load.  Also, color-coding of two-train levels
makes for interesting problems on monochrome screen.
	Toronto is like Boston, but colder.  Ithaca is like Berkeley,
but with snow.
	Linda has a car for sale.  Send her mail if you're interested.

	The meeting was adjourned at 20:01.


	Minutes taken and submitted by Ken Raeburn, with Rob's account.