HomeARC ML 1079
THE MICRO-TRF REVOLUTION! DO 1079 14/11/81
Dear TRFers & Statters,
Greetings in Jesus Name! thank you for your very faithful TRFing & Statting which helps to make all of our work possible!--& thank you also for bearing with us while we go through a series of revolutions of New TRFs & Stats Sheets trying to find the best most condensed & easiest to use & we think we have now finally found it. Praise God! Hallelujah! Thank you Jesus!--& thanks to you for your patience!
1. YOU'LL FIND THE LATEST TRF, which for the sake of convenience & identification we're calling the "Final TRF" (we hope, D.V.), in this month's Magazine Number 45, we hope, D.V. And you Statters have already received rush copies & sample Stats Sheets to fit it. All you TRFers have to worry about is filling it out, the simplest, shortest, most convenient TRF we have ever used!
2. ALL THE REGULAR MONTHLY STATS ARE IN ONE LONG SIMPLE COLUMN on the right hand of the page running the full length of the sheet in the centre of your Magazine just under the staples. So you can easily tear it out or open the staples & take it out gently whichever you prefer. The staples are not in any location where they can do any serious damage even if you just rip it out like you do those Playboy centrefolds. Actually we have prettier pictures now of much more beautiful, sweeter, inspiring girls than Playboy ever had, so why bother with Playboy any more? Just get our sexy colourful, moving beautiful sound-on-film videos & you'll have lots of Playmates to play around with! Praise the Lord!--Or watch my "garden of Eden" series & you'll get a nice one to begin with & end with everytime! Anyhow, back to the serious business of the Stats:
3. ACROSS THE TOP OF THE NEW, LATEST, & WE HOPE FINAL TRF, IS THE SAME MEMBERS LIST which you don't have to fill out at all once you have filled out the first one, providing there have been no changes in your membership since then, but if you have had any changes since you first filled out this List, all your have to do is enter those changes on the list, at the bottom of which there is space for a change of address as well, or the address of a new Home who is sending in their first TRF.
4. IF YOU HAVE ALREADY SENT US you correct, exact mailing name & address used by you at the Post Office, then you needn't fill this out again & again each month. We already have it & we will know who you are by the Number of your Home, which surely by this time you have been given by your CROs & LIMs. That will be the only identification of your newest TRF, this TRF first published in this issue of the Magazine 45.
5. ONLY FILL IN THE NAME OF YOUR CITY & STATE & COUNTRY UNDER YOUR HOME NUMBER at the top of the Stat column, which will be of help to our Statters in sorting these out according to same, or locating which Home you are if you carelessly neglect to enter the number of your Home at the top right hand corner. But once we already have your name & address you needn't continue to fill it out at the bottom of the Membership List unless there has been some change in your address, then please do so & as early as possible. But that's the last time you'll have to fill it out until there is a change.
6. FROM NOW ON WE WILL IDENTIFY YOUR HOME BY ITS NUMBER, as we already have your name & address on our file. This is also a good security measure in case your mail should be opened by some curious person. The only thing they will see is a strange looking list of items & your stats, but that's all. There's nothing but a Number up there for your Home, which gives us who you are, your name & address according to our file. So from now on only New Homes should have to fill in their complete name & address once & for all at the bottom of the Members List, or Homes which have had a change of address. Then you can leave it blank in all subsequent TRFs until your next move.
7. BUT IF YOU AREA NEW TRFer, A NEW HOME, PLEASE DO FILL IN NOT ONLY YOUR NAME & ADDRESS BUT THE LIST OF MEMBERS OF YOUR HOME with the requested individual data on each of them. Thank you. This will determine the number of Magazines that your Home receives, so be sure that you fill it in accurately, particularly as to who lives in & who lives out & the number of children under 12, as well as the rest of the information thereon which we need for our Family statistics, such as your country of passport & what country you have come from & so on, as well as the number of years you've spent in the Family, & whether you're mated or single & your sex.
8. ALL OF THIS IS OF INTEREST TO ALL OF US to know just how our family is constituted & how your migrations are progressing, & we hope you're all moving Southward as rapidly as possible. we've received several new warnings about this recently, so you had better get going before the goin' gets too tough!
9. WE HOPE TO HAVE SOME OF THE VOLUNTARY STATS READY FOR YOU IN THIS ISSUE but as they only began coming in with your November 1st Reports & they may not all be in until December 1st or thereafter, it'll take us a little time to total & analyse them for each country, so we may not have that report ready for you until January 1st or thereafter.--At least not later than the January magazine, God willing. And if this Magazine 45 turns out to be your January issue, then here you are!--The Voluntary Stats Report is herein this very same issue, praise God! So that now you'll know pretty well what country is best for you down South & which ones you had better avoid according to your talents, ministry, finances & so on.
10. THIS IS ALSO THE LAST TIME YOU'LL HAVE TO MAKE OUT THAT VOLUNTARY TRF FOR AWHILE as we won't need it again until there have been major or significant changes in various countries, so therefore we probably will not get it out oftener than perhaps every six months or even yearly. So please be comforted by the fact you'll not have to make that one out again for a long time to come, we hope, D.V. But if there are any significant changes in your area, since the Voluntary TRF will be placed on the back of your regular TRF, then it will always be available to you to make any changes if there have been any outstanding changes in your area in the housing available, costs, changes in possible ministries etc.
11. IF YOUR HOUSING HAS CHANGED or your accommodations for guests have changed, or the types of ministry in your area have changed significantly, or the amount of rents or costs have changed considerably, or if there have been any important changes in your fellowships or shepherds, please note those on the Voluntary TRF on the back of your regular monthly TRF so that we can make those changes on our stats for your area & notify our Family accordingly as the conditions change in each area.
12. THANK YOU & GOD BLESS YOU FOR BEING WILLING TO BE A GREAT HELP TO OUR MIGRATING FAMILIES! Their stats from Home Fields may be of interest to you too, to see just what you have escaped, thank God! The good ol' Victories Page we have retained just below the Membership List with its additional space for anything else you want to add to your monthly TRF as well as some additional information on births etc. There's also a new line at the bottom of the page for you to check whatever box applies to the condition of the last mail you received, so we'll know how the mail is being treated in your area & what precautions to take, if necessary. And, of course, don't forget to sign your Bible name at the bottom, both the shepherds & the secretary who actually filled out the TRF.
13. IN THE STAT COLUMN ON THE RIGHT you only have to fill out a few simple check marks in most of the boxes, along with a few figures of your month's statistics, as well as the various kinds of numbers of the various kinds of members in or out of your Home, along with the Lit & FF Shiner names & stats. And, of course, don't forget to enter the amount of your Tithe & your extra Gifts & the Total Amount Enclosed with your TRF at the bottom of the column & that's all there is to it!
14. IF YOU HAVE KEPT FAITHFUL DAILY & WEEKLY STATS IN YOUR NEW ONE-HEART DIARY, you'll have no problem at the end of the month adding these up quickly on your little hand calculator & entering these totals in this simple TRF, & shoot it to us on time each 1st of the month to be sure you don't miss any of your World Service Publications or tapes! Amen? God bless you & thanks a lot!
15. AND YOU STATISTICIANS OF THE CROs & LIMs will notice that this New TRF exactly fits the new Stats Sheet which we sent you, constructed to exactly coincide with this column of TRF stats so that you can simply take each TRF & lay it on your Stat Sheet next to the column you're to fill out for that Home & simply copy the ticks & figures from the one to the other quickly. It could hardly be any more simple or easier than that. And the way we constructed the Stat Sheet, you'll notice is able to accumulate all the necessary Stats for 15 Homes on each Stat Sheet on an ordinary piece of typing paper, which we trust you have xeroxed from our sample Stat Sheet, or you can make out one of your own if you which if you want the type to be clearer.
16. JUST BE SURE IT FITS THESE NEWEST TRFs to make it simple & easy for you to transfer the Stats from their TRF to your sheet. There is also a column at the extreme right of identification of each line so you'll be sure & not slip, as well as a final column for totals, so that when you're through with all of your Stats for a certain country you only need to add together the final totals
from the final columns of your various Stats Sheets.
17. TO GET THE FINAL TOTALS in that extreme right hand column for each Stat Sheet of course you'll have to add across the page along each line of Home Totals. But this should be no problem if you're using a simple hand-held numerical calculator, the tiny little calling-card-size that you can buy in almost any electronic shop nowadays & which have become very inexpensive so that everyone should have one & save that brain-strain of trying to add & figure all these figures in your own head.
18. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THESE LATEST CARD-SIZE PERSONAL POCKET CALCULATORS, & mine is even a clock & an alarm which gives the date, time, the day, & which you can also set its beeping alarm for whatever time you wish to remind you to go to bed or get up or of an appointment or when to listen to the news or stick a coin in your parking meter or whatever. Mine is a tiny Canon only about 5 x 9 centimetres & only 3 milimetres thin, with a little leatherette case for protection so it can easily be carried in your pocket or your purse to check not only your stats but your shopping or your banking or whatever. It runs on a little tiny wafer battery which lasts about six months to a year depending on how much you use the alarm. I set mine for the World News everyday so I won't forget to listen to it.
19. WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND SOME KIND OF SMALL PORTABLE OR POCKET CALCULATOR for the Family use of every Home for a multitude of computing needs including your monthly Stats. So use it!--But don't abuse it! There are many labour-saving & time-saving devices which the System has developed which we also can helpfully take advantage of for our own use to save our own valuable time & strength & maybe even save embarrassment in improper calculations of your banking, finances, shopping lists etc. Don't knock'm use'm! We are, & so should you if you can. The cheaper ones are very inexpensive & there's no reason why any of you should be without one. Our little David is even learning Math on his as well as playing memory tapes on its tiny microcassette tape recorder, so they can even be useful in teaching your children.
20. INCIDENTLY THE LATEST MICROCASSETTE TAPE RECORDERS ARE SO GOOD THEY CAN EVEN PLAY HI-FI STEREO MUSIC, two hours of it on a single tiny micro tape only 3 x 5 cm. & only 8 mm thin! That's about one-fourth the size of your average normal standard cassette tape & one-fourth the weight as well for carrying tapes with you or sending them by mail! So you'd better start going micro as soon as you can 'cause that's the way the whole World is going, & it will be very beneficial to our Family in particular who are so nomadic & with whom portability is a vital necessity, so that miniaturisation is indispensable for lightweight & small size in carrying on planes or wherever. Also the very small hand-held-size micro recorders are excellent for dictation & communication such as I am using right now for this Letter, & may also be used for transcribers & even for playing music! Ask for the micro stereo that is made for playing music.
21. SO YOU'D BETTER GET YOUR MICRO RECORDERS SOON, as we may soon be sending you music tapes in micro size! But you ask, "If I convert to micro, what am I going to do with all my old standard-size tapes that I've been lugging around with me?" Well, you simply get yourself a micro & a patchcord, hook'm together, play your old tapes on your standard-size tape recorder & so record them onto your micro tapes & you've got it made! Of course for the micro music you need a special high-fidelity type of micro tape which is a little more expensive than standard tapes today. But like everything else, the more people start using micro & the more micro tape they sell the cheaper they'll get, just like the cassette tape recorders & standard cassette tapes. Meanwhile you're saving in time, size & weight when travelling & moving from place to place or even hitchhiking, so they can be a tremendous boon to mobile families like ours!
22. WE RECOMMEND THAT YOU RESEARCH THE MICRO CASSETTES SPECIALLY MADE FOR PLAYING MUSIC TAPES that are listed in the article in the front cover of this Letter. Just be sure you don't get Phillips or any others which have a slightly larger micro tape which are not interchangeable with the most popular micro tape recorders of the latest makes, sad to say! Phillips really missed the boat! Although they pioneered micros, they've made'm a bit too big, & all the latest micros are a little smaller than the Phillips & a few other odd-ball sizes. Test equipment before purchasing to make sure it's what you want.
23. SO START SHOPPING & GET YOURSELF THE BEST IN LATEST MICRO AS SOON AS YOU CAN & start transferring your old Family tapes to these new micro sizes that you can carry around with your in your pocket listening wherever you go! Some of them even have stereo headsets that go with them, & the micro-minis are all the latest rage in the States, which is one reason why you see so many people there walking around with headphones on nowadays, with a tiny cord leading to their pocket or purse or bosom containing their tiny little micro cassette tape recorder playing music as they go! or you can have verses as you go, inspiration as you go for a Family on the go!
24. START CONVERTING TO MICRO NOW & YOU'LL BE AHEAD OF ALL THE REST! Miniaturisation is no longer a thing of the future, it is here now for a whole World on the go! So don't get left behind with that heavy equipment! Of course, you'll have to also keep your standard size players for awhile until we can start sending your monthly tapes in micro size. My whole staff's already gone micro & I hope you can too, as well all move around so much & I'll sure save a lot of lugging of heavy equipment & heavy tapes!
25. JUST THINK, YOU CAN GET ONE OF THESE LITTLE TINY MICRO TAPE RECORDERS IN LESS THAN ONE-FOURTH THE SPACE of your former little portable, & its tapes are only one-fourth the size of all those big tapes you've been luggin' around! So it's three-quarters less luggage, weight, space & cost of excess baggage! Go micro today & you'll be ready for tomorrow! Hallelujah! (Prays:)
26. THANK YOU JESUS FOR ALL OF THESE HELPFUL INVENTIONS that You've made possible to make our work easier, our burdens lighter & our job faster so You can come sooner! TYJ! Please, Lord, bless & help our dear Families to go micro, & make it possible for them financially so they can be ready for the future that is already here & now, & make it easy for us to minister to them via micro at great saving in time, strength, weight, size, space & even money! Help our Dear Ones to take advantage of the use of all these new short-cut tools for our ministry. Help us to pioneer micros like we did videos!
27. LORD, WE'RE OLD-FASHIONED IN OUR FAITH, BUT WE CAN BE AS NEW-FASHIONED AS POSSIBLE IN OUR METHODS & OUR TOOLS, so please help us all to go micro soon!
28. ALSO LORD, HELP THE FAMILY PRAY THAT THE COMMERCIAL COMPANIES WILL SOON PRODUCE MICRO DUPERS for the general public or business use, so that even our taping Units can go micro as well & we can send out all the taps in micro at great savings in space & weight & postage. Help the System, Lord, to hurry up & develop these terrific new improvements so we can use them for Thy work & our Family as well as our enjoyment & inspiration! PG! TYJ! Thank You Lord for all the marvellous blessings You have poured out upon us so there's hardly room enough to hold them all! We know You'll help bring this to pass too, just like You did the videos!
29.--AND PLEASE HELP THOSE WHO STILL NEED VIDEOS to be able to get them & enjoy our Worldwide fellowship via video in gorgeous sound, colour & picture almost like being there in person! Bless the videos we've already produced & all the audios too & make them a great blessing to millions, as You have the Letters & the Magazines & the Books & all the other wonderful things you're helping us to produce for Family use & Family tools to help with our job & enjoyment, inspiration, & education, in Jesus' name, amen. TYJ! PTL!
30. GBY FAMILY! COMMUNICATION IS THE NAME OF THE GAME AMEN? THE WORD IS OUR WORK, so use it in any form you can get that you find most useful & helpful & encouraging. Amen? Thank you & God bless you! We love you & we hope to see you soon via video, or hear you soon via micro! Get those TRFs & Tithes in on time so you won't miss yours! GBY!--In Jesus' name, Amen.--ILY!
31. GO VIDEO & GO MICRO & GO GO GO INTO ALL THE WORLD with the Gospel for every creature!--Amen?--& we'll go with you!--And He'll never leave you nor forsake you! He says, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the End of the World!" (Mt.28:20.) Amen? TYJ!--Forever yours!
A sampling of portable learning aids currently on the market at $20 to $120
New computers, a new magazine and a new kind of literacy
For years, computers have been ballyhooed as a miraculous wave of the future in elementary education. The miracle never arrived. In the 1970s manufacturers spent millions of dollars to develop computers for use in schools, but most of the systems received dismal grades on teacher report cards. The machines were too expensive, their performance unreliable, their programs academically inadequate. But lately, with the advent of the more sophisticated micro-computers, prices have fallen and performance has vastly improved.
Literacy once meant the ability to read and write, and perhaps acquire familiarity with, say, Paradise Lost. Today, children who cannot even decipher a limerick are becoming what is known as "computer literate." Just as Gutenberg's press stimulated literacy in the 15th century, the emergence of the low-cost personal computer of the 1980s is making the knowledge of what computers can do an essential educational discipline.
In the present state of the art, electronic learning aids fall into two basic categories: larger and more expensive, and smaller and cheaper. According to Karen Billings, director of the Microcomputer Resources Center at Columbia University's Teachers College, the more sophisticated desktop computers with their TV-like screens, moving images and music have at last changed the negative perceptions of both teachers and parents: the former are tantalized by the possibilities; the latter are astonished that their children can master such seemingly complex devices.
If a school's budget is not up to a microcomputer, there are compact electronic learning aids that can be toted to and from school like a lunch box and cost from under $20 to about $120. Texas Instruments, a pioneer in "talking" computer chips, is the leading producer of these less expensive aids. (Others: Mattel, Coleco, Milton Bradley.) In 1978 TI introduced Speak & Spell, a talking learning aid, which imitated the human voice--questioning, coaching and correcting the user--with an integrated circuit on a single silicon chip. On a later machine, called Speak & Read ($75), a child can complete sentence at three levels of difficulty by pressing letters on a keyboard to spell out the correct words. For example, the machine slowly enunciates, "I want to try to--"and then flashes three choices: "Bag," "Over," "Read." If the student presses b-a-g the computer gently intones, "Wrong. Try again." The student taps out r-e-a-d. "Very good," says the machine benignly, "the correct word is read."
Camps for Computers
Snakes and frogs are discarded for BASIC and PASCAL
The summer camp in the woodsy countryside near Moodus, Conn., has the usual hiking trails, volleyball courts and swimming area. But the youthful campers are reluctant to test the great outdoors. Says Director Michael Zabinski: "We encourage the kids to go swimming, but we don't require it. After all, it's air-conditioned inside and it's hot and muggy outside."
Coming from most camp directors that statement would be heresy. But it is a typical attitude among staffers and their charges at the nation's newest form of summer retreat: computer camps. There, instead of naming wild flowers and singing, One Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall, boys and girls ages ten to 18 devise electronic games and learn computer languages like BASIC & PASCAL. At computer Camp East in East Hadam, Conn., Vit Henisz, 12, articulates the campers' current philosophy: "Time for recreation is forced on us. Computer time is not."
A full enrollment of 80 youngsters is expected this summer for each of four fortnightly sessions at California's Computer Camp Inc., the nation's largest, located in Los Padres National Forest outside Santa Barbara. now in its second year, the camp was created by Denison Bollay, 28, who became addicted to computers at age 13. About one-fourth of the Los Padres campers are familiar with computers before they arrive (some bring their own home computers with them); for most, though, the two-week immersion is their first close encounter with the machines. "We've got a computer at my school," explains red-haired Karl Kuellmer, 14, of Mountain Ranch, Calif., "but no one knows how to use it." Founder Bollay sees his camp as a response to what he terms the "agonizingly slow pace" of school instruction in the subject. "In the future," he says, "those who are not computer-literate will be at a terrible disadvantage. Training kids to work with computers is like training them to read--it's that critical."
Each morning at breakfast in the oak dining room of Bollay's camp, youngsters sign up for at least two sessions of such traditional camp activities as hiking, boating swimming or horseback riding. "We've got to get them into the sunshine some of the time," concedes Director Garry White. But the chief focus of the camp is on computers. In three daily 90-minute sessions, beginners study BASIC and introductory programming; more advanced students take courses in robotics, graphics and computer-generated speech. During free time--once used to watch snakes eat frogs or to flirt with the waterfront counselors--campers play games on any of the 42 Atari, Apple, Texas Instruments and Commodore home computers.
After several days of intensive instruction (including homework), the campers choose their own computer project. Last week, for example, Peter Elliman, 12, was trying to design a program to analyze taxes for his mother, a Houston real estate agent. Halley Hupp, 13, of Newport Beach, Calif., said, "I want to make a C.S.I. [EDITED: "Computer System Instruction"] program for teaching kids like us how to use some graphics and key words." Counsellors give the youthful programmers high marks. Says Instructor Mitch Williams, 22, a computer-science graduate from the University of California of Santa Barbara: "I'm glad the kids are not to mathematically advanced or I'd have trouble keeping up with them."
Though there are only a few computer camps at present, operators are planning a series of new ones for 1982. Arthur Michals, who opened Connecticut's Computer Camp East this summer, received 2,000 inquiries after announcing the camp in newspaper ads. He plans to open a Houston branch next year. This week California's Bollay is launching the first of five one-week sessions at St. John's Beaumont School near Old Windsor. England; capacity enrollment is expected. In the U.S., the cost of the camps ranges between $300 & $400 per week. Though these campers may be more computerwise than their peers, they have not entirely abandoned tradition. Epidemics of short-sheeting coexist with robotics and PASCAL. and like campers everywhere, eleven-year-old Evan Katzman of Homestead, Fla., is quick to give a visitor the classic rating of camp food. Says he: "It's the pits."--TIME
THE LATEST IN MICROS!
Miniature Stereos: Micro Music Boom
JOIN THE MICRO REV!--Today!--Be ahead tomorrow!
They are ubiquitous on city streets from Tokyo to London--miniature portable tape players with ultralight headphones that have become a global status symbol for the early 1980s. Since Sony Corp. introduced its first Walkman model in 1979, about 30 other companies have moved into the "personal stereo" business. Millions of units have been sold in dozens of different models, each seemingly smaller and cheaper than the last. So it was only a matter of time before Japan's electronics industry would push its less-is-more marketing strategy to the extreme--creating a new generation of models that promise to deliver symphony music from a machine the size of a cigarette pack.
The technological key to this latest round of miniaturization is the microcassette, a matchbook-size version of the standard audio-cassette tape. Introduced in 1969 by Japan's Olympus Optical Co., microcassettes were designed for use in hand-held dictation machines. With a severely cramped sonic range--playable in monaural only--they were dismissed as too limited for high-fidelity music. But as a result of recent advances in coating tapes with metal particles, all that has changed. The metal-tape microcassettes are still far from concert--hall standards, but they have made possible stereo recordings nearly on a par with standard cassettes. The result: a batch of new "micro" stereos that are hitting the Japanese, U.S. and European markets--and intensifing the high-pressure competition in the portable-music industry. Says Donald La Benda of Fisher Corp., a U.S. subsidiary of Sanyo Corp.: "It's the beginning of a whole new segment of the industry, and we expect it to be a million-dollar business by next year."
The biggest names in Japanese consumer electronics have already joined the battle. Sanyo and Aiwa launched the first microcassette models last year and have produced 80,000 units so far. Sony recently began marketing its first micro entry and is already producing 15,000 a month. And giant Matsushita Electric will introduce its third Panasonic model in September. Some are simply down-sized versions of the latest--and smallest--Walkman, limited to playing back prerecorded cassettes. Others are micro-size "boom boxes," combining an AM/FM radio, a recorder and tiny--but powerful--stereo speakers. Another combines boom-box features with a tiny Walkman-style personal player that detaches from the main unit. Prices range from about $160 for the simplest models to nearly $400 for the most complex.
The micro-stereo manufacturers still face at lest one full-size selling problem: software. One reason for the Walkman's astonishing success was the already widespread use of standard cassette tapes, creating a nature pool of customers who already had or could make music to play on their tape decks. But so far, only one company in Japan--and none in the United States--has taken a bait and begun selling limited lines of recorded micro music. "we don't know what the recording companies will do," says Sony's Hidetoshi Uchiyama. "Until we do, we can't tell how large the market will be."
Space Savers: Few industry analysts see the microcassette becoming the standard--if only because both customers and companies already have too much invested in the larger cassette tapes and machines. But miniaturization could fit neatly into certain sectors of the booming business. The car-stereo market, where small losses in sound quality are less audible because of existing road noise, is an ideal segment for micro stereos because they also save space. Marketing men believe that miniature music systems are here to stay--and buyers will happily pay for lighter and more compact machines than the current generation of portable stereos. "It will take a while," says a confident William Hoard, a vice president of Aiwa's U.S. subsidiary, "but micro-stereo systems will be as large a phenomenon as the Walkman products." When the micro market really takes off, the Japanese will once again be its principal purveyors.--Newsweek
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
