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 PolyLetter, Our Newsletter
PolyLetter was a user-group newsletter started by Mark Sutherland in 1980. It was edited by several Poly enthusiasts over a period of about 13 years.
Thanks to one of those editors, Ralph Kenyon, we now have a complete set of PolyLetter from 1980 through 1993, including six issues per year during most years. Click on any of the thumbnails below to download a PDF version of that year.
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PolyLetter 1980: with free programs, games, discussions of CP/M support, modem communications, machine language and BASIC programming techniques, new WordMaster word processing software, listings and offerings of many types of utility and business programs. |
Editor: Mark Sutherland |
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PolyLetter 1981: with a new operating system release (Exec/93), hard disk subsystem, sorting disaster recovery, the Front Panel, FORTH programming, CP/M topics, PolyMorphic's move to a new address. |
Editor: Bob Bybee |
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PolyLetter 1982: with confidence testing, ROM versions, CP/M, letter-quality printing tips, the design of Poly's new system, business applications, spell-checking, assembly language macros and relocatable programming. |
Editor: Bob Bybee |
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PolyLetter 1983: with a two-drive 8810, an 18 MB hard drive add-on, Pascal programming, the Shugart SA-400 floppy drive, Exec/96 and BASIC C04, communications software packages and modems, the Poly text formatter, connections for the serial printer port. |
Editor: Bob Bybee |
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PolyLetter 1984: with command files, hard drives, spares kits, mods for 2-drive and high capacity floppy drives, ROM internals, Toshiba printers, the Video Terminal Interface (VTI) and Central Processor Unit (CPU), typesetting. |
Editor: Frank Stearns |
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PolyLetter 1985: with more on hard drives, communications protocols, the Floppy Disk Controller (FDC), solid state disks, mail list software, the Adventure game, macros, command files. |
Editors:
Frank Stearns,
Charles Steinhauser |
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PolyLetter 1986: with MailList, printer setup, user-defined functions, games, memory diagnostics, help files, device drivers.
Feedback from readers indicates that more and more of them are switching from Poly to IBM-PC compatible machines. |
Editors:
Charles Steinhauser,
Ralph Kenyon |
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PolyLetter 1987: with baud rates, public-domain software, Okidata 192 printer, spell checking, sorting, repairing a broken Poly, Gnomus, parallel printer ports.
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Editor: Ralph Kenyon |
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PolyLetter 1988: with a local-area network (LAN) for Poly, serial port programming, video interfacing, Little-Ada compiler, SAVEF and SAVEP, C programming, the Front Panel, memory management techniques, conversion of Poly BASIC programs to IBM's GWBASIC.
At the end of this year, PolyMorphic officially announces they are closing the business. |
Editor: Ralph Kenyon |
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PolyLetter 1989: with numeric precision in BASIC, graphics printing, TTL logic families, copyright issues, and more about transitioning from the Poly to a PC.
The Poly Emulator is released, allowing Poly programs to run on a PC. |
Editor: Ralph Kenyon |
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PolyLetter 1990: with printer sharing, print control codes, bugs in the Poly ROMs, tips on useful PC programs, performance measurements of the Poly Emulator, implementation and troubleshooting of external Poly hard drives. |
Editor: Ralph Kenyon |
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PolyLetter 1991: with subroutines, hypertext, TSR programs, the System Programmers Guide, comparisons of PC and Poly BASIC, backing up and restoring files. |
Editor: Ralph Kenyon |
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PolyLetter 1992: with bar code printing, mortgage calculations, upgrading RAM cards, the Meta compiler, BASIC printing, DOS batch (command) files.
The May/June issue mentions hackers and computer viruses for the first time. |
Editor: Ralph Kenyon |
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PolyLetter 1993: with MS-DOS and 4DOS, a print spooler, COM ports, more discussion of the Poly Emulator.
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Editor: Ralph Kenyon |
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