Minutes of the July 26, 1995 Board Meeting.

Aug 1 03:48 UTC 1995

Minutes of the meeting of the board of Cyberspace Communications, Inc.
July 26, 1995 at the Michigan Union Food Court

14. The meeting was called to order at 7:07 PM by Valerie Mates.

Board members attending: 
Valerie Mates (popcorn), President, Steve Weiss (srw), Secretary,
Steve Gibbard (scg), STeve Andre' (steve), Rane Curl (rcurl), 
John Remmers (remmers).

Absent: Dan Romanchik (danr) Treasurer.

Public in attendance: Glenda Andre (glenda), Mary Remmers (chelsea),
Dave Lovelace (davel), Marc Unangst (mju).

18. Treasurers report (danr) - was not given. Dan posted this on-line prior
to the meeting.

23. 501(c)(3) committee (rcurl) - no progress was reported

28. Computer Rehabilitation Committee (rcurl) - TS has reported that he
doesn't have time to work on the PCs he has. He has asked Rane to pick
them up, which Rane says he plans to do.

34. Publicity Committee (mta) - report was not given, because mta was
not in attendance.

72: (agenda item was covered out of order, deliberately)
    The UPS (steve) - The batteries are dead. They are 4 car batteries,
    (slightly smaller, actually) and they need to be replaced.
    
    Also, there is something wrong with the ciruitry, not deep in the innards.
    Greg Cronau is going to look at this to see if it can be repaired.
    
    The device is not worth $250, and STeve wanted to write a letter to 
    Arbornet, explaining our position. STeve also said it did not have 
    as much capacity as we were originally led to believe.
    
    There was a great deal of discussion regarding this. Mary Remmers,
    Steve Weiss, Valerie Mates, and several others expressed concern that 
    this UPS looks like another staff reconstruction project that is 
    going to consume staff time for a device that is not very critical.
    Also there was concern that this UPS isn't the right UPS for us. 
    Some argued that we would be better off by buying a new smaller UPS for 
    about $400 with a warrantee.
    
    The board did not approve STeve's plan to offer Arbornet $50 for it, and
    suggested that the UPS be returned to Arbornet on the basis that it 
    does not work. srw agreed to send email to the donors who have put up 
    the money on the condition that it be used for the UPS, explaining 
    that we cannot use their money to buy that UPS, and offering them
    (a) a refund, (b) to save it for another UPS, or (c) to unrestrict their
    gift, at the donors' option.
    
42. Technical Committee report (steve) - 

* Flood: During the 2" rainfall earlier in the week, the dungeon shipped
    water. It was about 1/4 inch at the deepest and it did not threaten the
    hardware, which clears the ground by 2.5 inches. The maximum area
    of flooded floor was about 6 square feet. The landlord was notified.
    The power conditioner was raised onto a milk carton. Grex was shut down
    as a precaution, since we did not know how much water was going to 
    arrive.
    
* Disk Problem: Greg Cronau has encountered some more info on a usenet group
    that might pertain to our ability to boot the sun-3 from the new
    controller. We have never successfully done that, although we might have
    been able to deactivate the disk problem if we could have.
    
* Sun 4: We are still waiting for Greg to liberate a Sun-3 chassis.
    There has this been no progress her, although we expect gain access to
    one of our chassis shortly (with all of its parts working).
    
* CD Rom - Marc unangst announced he had puchased for Grex a Sun-compatible
    CD player. This will be needed for the Sun-4 project. Cost $90.
   
50. Verification Policy (steve) - no news
    STeve promises to upload it for others to go over.

59. Newsletter vote - John Remmers posted the results of the election. The
    top 5 vote-getters will be run off to select a winner. John will set up
    the runoff election. Steve Gibbard has dropped out as a volunteer to
    edit the newsletter, because of his new job.
    
66. Grex Manual (danr) - report not given because danr was not here.

79. Add Jan Wolter to staff - Jan Wolter has decided to move back to 
Ann Arbor.  The staff recommended to the board that he be added as a 
root staff member.  The motion by Valerie Mates was seconded by Steve Weiss 
and passed unanimously 6-0.

86. New Business

* Insurance - Glenda will call Benz insurance. Rane Curl will investigate
  obtaining insurance through a club membership in the American Radio
  Relay League (ARRL).
  
* Reap Policy - It was suggested that we stop reaping during August. There
  was strong disagreement among the staff on this question. The board
  took no action, with the item to be further discussed in coop.
  
* Reporter Karl Bates wrote an excellent article about Grex which appeared
  in the Ann Arbor News of Wednesday, July 26. Everyone was quite pleased
  with the story.
  
* We are looking for a Party Administrator who will share duties with 
  Steve Gibbard. Valerie will be looking again on-line.
  
* One of our old 2400 baud modemds is dead. Staff recommends that we
  purchase a JVC modem ($105, approx). Valerie Mates moved, and
  Steve Weiss seconded, that we approve an amount not to exceed $120 for
  such a replacement modem. The motion carried unanimously 6-0.
  
79. The meeting was adjourned at 8:41 PM
   

response 2 of 19:

Aug 1 11:00 UTC 1995

Looks good to me, Steve.

By the way, it's a GVC modem, not JVC.

response 4 of 19:

Aug 2 13:06 UTC 1995

I thought those modei were about $89 ???

response 6 of 19:

Aug 3 08:01 UTC 1995

        CCS might give a discount on the GVC 14.4K external if you ask.

        Regarding the UPS... I asked what was up with this, and got mail from
popcorn and gregc explaining the problems.  I will discuss the matter with
other Arbornet officials and get back to Grex officials.  I am
disappointed, of course, that the UPS didn't work, and very sorry to have
put Grex staffers to so much trouble for a device that doesn't work.

response 8 of 19:

Aug 5 15:20 UTC 1995

If anyone is interested in reading the item from a few co-ops 
ago when the insurance issue was discussed - I've upload the
item to: /u/chelsea/insure

response 10 of 19:

Aug 5 17:39 UTC 1995

At an OK: or R/P: prompt enter: !cat /u/chelsea/insure | more

You'll be subjected to the format in which I read items.
Deal with it. ;-)

response 12 of 19:

Aug 6 04:11 UTC 1995

I gather another modem was already ordered, but for future reference, 
MicroTime lists GVC 14.4k externals for $89 + unknown shipping, credit
cards or c.o.d. accepted, 30 day mbg but 20% restocking fee (shipping
non-refundable).  I know nothing about them other than that they have
an ok-looking full-page ad in Computer Shopper.  1-800-834-0000.

By the way, was any thought given to trying GVC 28.8 modems, rather than
buying more 14.4s?  I can't foresee Grex needing the higher speed anytime
soon, but if v.34 provided better reliability at 9600 or 14.4k, they might
be worth considering.  (though in my limited experience, a cheap 14.4 
connects more reliably than a cheap 28.8 connecting at 14.4k or 9600).

response 14 of 19:

Aug 6 15:50 UTC 1995

And just because a modem supports 28.8 doesn't mean it will automattically
be better at 14.4K. In fact, in all likelyhood, it will be *worse*. The
designers will have put most of their attention into the 28.8K mode, the
older rates will just be there as "fall backs".

response 16 of 19:

Aug 7 19:55 UTC 1995

        GVC has 14.4K modems in both internal and external models, but only
internal 28.8K modems.

response 18 of 19:

Aug 9 02:51 UTC 1995

Or the one I'm looking at: GVC V.34 external $159, internal $129.