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Dear [On Disk Monthly],

I finally got ticked off enough to write to you!  Your disk #56 did 
it!  Normally, I'm one of those people who put up with programs I 
don't care for knowing that every now and then you will add a program 
that is a little gem.  I'm willing to sift through the garbage in 
order to get to the good stuff.

I realize the problems you must encounter in trying to please all of 
your subscribers.  Hopefully the 100 out of 25,000 people who send in 
the report cards are not making your policy decisions.  Please don't 
assume that just because we don't fill out the report card the rest 
of us are quietly content with On Disk.

"RIGHT ON!" to Bill EcElvenney, Philadelphia, PA. in BLUENOTES #56.  
I'm making my voice heard!  A section on programming would be greatly 
appreciated.  By the way, I thought the HAPPY HACKER was supposed to 
do this.  Every month in your ABOUT ON DISK MONTHLY you state:

     "The HAPPY HACKER provides a wide range of program aids
      such as disk utilities and graphics tools--as well as
      in-depth exploration of various technical topics."

Well, I'm still waiting!  There has not been a HAPPY HACKER section 
since well before issue #43.  Don't you read you own disk?   Why keep 
saying this?  One of the reasons I subscribed was to get this 
section.  So where is it?

Speaking of ABOUT ON DISK MONTHLY.  Why use up precious disk space 
telling us about what you're going to give us.  Just do it--don't 
tell us about it!

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Another waste of space!  I haven't bothered 
reading this section for months.  I find out all I need to know from 
your main menu.

REPUBLICATIONS:  First BIG BLUE FILE FINDER and now yet another PRINT 
SHOP(r) UTILITIES IV.  We keep having to pay for the same program 
over and over.  Granted, each version is a bit better (I suppose) but 
talk about taking up disk space!  If there is a major flaw in the 
program I could deal with that -- but minor updates?  Come on!  Wow, 
you could really save time and money if you published one issue and 
republished it twelve time a year.

REPORT CARD:  The quality column was hard to fill out.  How about one 
line asking for the overall quality of the disk.  Then use your 
"saved space"  for comments or whatever.  Instead of grading as a 
teacher would A-F I would find it easier to answer questions like 
"Have more" or "Have less", or even "Used" or "Didn't use".

Hanging in there waiting for the "little gems".

^RJoyce G. Staie
^RMarysville, CA

Dear Ms. Staie:

Good news:  The Happy Hacker will return as of ODM #60.  I asked the 
public to voice their opinion on this matter and voice they did.  
Next month's disk will have CLR COMMAND:  A command line/batch file 
CLS replacement that adds different wipe effects to your screen 
clears.  You can rest easy knowing that the "little gems" or HAPPY 
HACKER material will be there every month from now on.

You note that ABOUT ON DISK MONTHLY and TABLE OF CONTENTS are a waste 
of space.  Agreed!  With Issue #61 we will be implementing a new 
presenter system, and the articles in question will no longer be on 
the disk.

As for republication of programs, I think you neglected to read the 
text that accompanied them.  Those programs were updated to fix major 
bugs.  We made the decision to republish only after filling the disk 
with our usual variety of software and seeing that we had the room.  
We would never reduce the items on an issue to republish a program.

The thoughts you expressed on the REPORT CARD are fantastic.  So much 
so that you can expect to see those changes in this issue.  Thank you 
for your fine suggestions.

We are making many changes to On Disk Monthly.  We hope the little 
gems you seem to be waiting for will show up as jewels in your 
mailbox once a month.

^REd.

|5

Dear [On Disk Monthly],

I am a subscriber of ODM now since issue 23, and as many others did 
before, I also have to say: keep up the good work!  There is nothing 
that compares to ODM here in "good old Germany", so I am eagerly 
waiting each new issue of ODM.

Of course, there are some programs that I like and other I don't 
like, but I think that is the fate of every magazine.  For example, 
DATEBOOK II or CATACOMB are excellent programs, even PRESIDENT QUIZ 
is worthy to me, because I can learn some American history.  Other 
programs, e.g.  the tax calculation program from an earlier issue are 
not useful to me because they only fit American standards and needs.

There is one thing I have to complain about.  It occurs within many 
but not all of programs (and in many other American programs too, 
even within some of the BIG commercial programs).

I cannot use these programs because they do not accept the full PC 
character set.  That second half of the character set not only 
contains semigraphical characters but also some foreign characters 
needed with languages other than English.  In Germany we need Umlauts 
(e.g. , , ) and in Spain they need  and so on.  I do not know how 
many foreign subscribers you have, and if they already wrote about 
this subject in letters to you.  Although there are bypasses (e.g. 
write ue instead of ). I do not like to use those programs.

A similar case occurs if I want to leave some programs.  Many 
programs require a confirmation when exiting, like "Do you want to 
exit?  (y/n)", but they take the keyboard scan code for "y" and not 
the letter "y".  On a German keyboard the letter "y" and "z" are 
exchanged.  In many cases, I have to type a "z" when the confirmation 
is prompted for.  Being an experienced computer user I know this 
behavior from many programs, but it may confuse a new user.

So all I wish is that you would encourage your programmers to not 
forget your foreign subscribers and enable the use of the full 
character set wherever possible.

Kind regards,

^RMatthias Kring
^RKreuztal GERMANY

Dear Mr. Kring:

You bring up two great points -- points that we'll pay more attention 
to in the future.  To be quite honest we never tested for extended 
character set support.  From your letter I take it that many other 
American software companies don't either.

Of course we would love to just wave a magic wand and have all our 
programs support the foreign character sets, but that would be 
impossible.  For example, Certificate Creator on this issue uses a 
graphic font set that doesn't even have the extended character set.  
There will be time where we simply cannot provide the support you ask 
for.

^REd.

|5


To the Editor:

When I received Issue #43, I immediately copied John Romero's 
Blank-it into my AUTOEXEC.BAT file.  It gave me a measure of privacy 
when guests came in unexpectedly, as well as protecting against 
"burn-in."

I recently upgraded from that XT to a new Peregrine 386SX with 2 Meg 
Ram.  I began to experience a number of failures, all of which seemed 
to be related to high memory failure.  The most serious was a disk 
crash causing the loss of 5 subdirectories and 323 files.  (Back-up, 
back-up and back-up!)

Peregrine's Vice President for Sales and their Chief of Technical 
support patiently worked with me through numerous telephone and fax 
communications to find the problem.  Once BLANK-IT was removed, so 
was the problem.

It is still a great program, but not if you are using the Quadtel 
Expanded Memory Manager Ver 4.0.  BLANK-IT sticks a foot out and 
trips the EMS device at some of the most inopportune moments.  Will 
be glad to load it again if John re-writes it to get out of the 
conflicting interrupts.

^RH. C. Witham
^RDayton, OH

Dear H. C.:

We've been waiting to upgrade Blank-it for some time now.  The 
biggest problem we've had is time--there is never enough!  As of this 
letter Blank-it has been updated and the issue it first appeared on
has been remastered.

If you have the original but could not use it because of a conflict 
with expanded memory, please call 1-800-831-2694 for a replacement.  
One will be sent to you immediately.

^REd.
