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The Caliper V15 #2 Cover
CBL™ News
More Relationships
Physics
Biology
Bits and Bytes
Workshops & Contests
Humor
Grants

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Bits & Bytes

We are very excited about our two new technical support people at Vernier Software. Robyn Johnson has eleven years of teaching experience including chemistry, ChemCom, earth science, biology, and physical science. Erik Schmidt is the soothing voice on the phone that helps with CBL™ and TI-GRAPH LINK™ questions. He has a B.S. in Psychology and a Master of Fine Arts degree. Erik enjoys the challenge of creating technical manuals and guide-books that won’t put the reader to sleep.

Dr. John Young of Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia has been conducting chemistry labs in Gambia, West Africa using our equipment with donated computers. Gambia is a very poor country, so low cost is important. We are happy to report the program is a big success!

Lisa Manning, a student of Sister Mary Ethel Parrott (Notre Dame Academy, Covington, KY), won awards and scholarships at the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium and also at the International Science and Engineering Fair. She used CBLs and ULIs to measure the voltage output of bioelectrochemical fuel cells.

New Macintosh Computers
Apple has come up with several new (fast) computers and we have gotten a lot of questions about them. Here is a report on their compatibility with our products:

Power Macintosh G3: We tested our new G3 computer using Logger Pro with the ULI and Serial Box Interface. We found they work fine in all our tests.

iMac: We also purchased an iMac computer, but we cannot really test it yet. The problem is that the iMac does not have a built-in serial port, so we cannot connect our lab interfaces or TI-GRAPH LINK. Serial port adapters have been announced, and they should provide the serial port connection we need. At press time, these adapters are still not available. Give us a call or check "What’s New" on our web site for an update on our tests.

Some of the newer Power Macintosh computers would not find our Serial Box Interface. We worked with Apple and have finally solved (we think) all of these problems. Logger Pro for Macintosh incorporates the necessary changes and we have a new version of Data Logger that handles this problem. In some cases you also need to add an extension (provided on the Data Logger disk) to your system folder. Computers involved include Power Mac 4400, 5400, 5500, 6360, 6400, 6500, PowerBook 3400, and PowerBook G3.

Chautauqua Short Courses: Promoting Active Learning in Introductory Physics Courses
Instructors: Priscilla Laws, David Sokoloff, and Ronald Thornton

• June 3-5, 1999-Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA
• June 17-19, 1999-University of Oregon, Eugene

10 Years Ago in This Newsletter . . .
We announced our first MS-DOS version of Graphical Analysis and both Apple II and MS-DOS versions of our Millikan Oil Drop Experiment simulation. We still sell all three programs. There was also a discussion of the new Apple IIc+, the last computer introduced in the Apple II line. We also had some pretty good jokes, one of which we are repeating in this newsletter.