* * * * M A I L B A G * * * * READER SUGGESTIONS Why don't you include an up-date index of the current disk [contents] for those of us who are using the ODM Indexer? Sure would be a lot easier for one person to enter data than many. The new format looks nice on my system. And thanks for the install program as it makes it easier to install the issue on my hard drive than to swap disks on the one floppy drive. Do you have any idea why, since ODM changed from Big Blue Disk to On Disk Monthly, I can't run any of the programs that require a CGA monitor. Previously, I could just run a CGA emulator program and most of the programs would run. I have an IBM/XT clone, by some unknown assembler, with a Hercules graphics card and an amber monitor. I am running DOS 3.21 and 4DOS ver 4.0. Rodney C. Peck Rome, NY EDITOR'S NOTE: You should be able to run our programs with your emulator program. However, we suggest that you try running individual programs with UniCGA, a universal CGA simulator that can be downloaded from almost any BBS. The UniCGA author requests a $5.00 donation. There is one caveat: UniCGA won't recognize the ODM menu system (you'll get a blank screen). This letter is a plea for your continued support and improvement of Enhanced Family Tree, the program developed several years ago by Daniel Tobias, Richard Wong and George Leritte. I've spent an awful lot of time typing in data to EFT. So, please try in some way or form to continue to support it with improvements and upgrades. If continued support is not possible for some reason, would you please consider at least providing us users with a utility that would allow our data to be exported from EFT to Genealogical Data Communications (GEDCOM) format? Then we would have a way to transfer our laboriously typed data to any one of a number of other genealogical software packages that can import data in GEDCOM format. Stanley C. Butler Bel Air, MD EDITOR'S NOTE: You and many other Family Tree/Enhanced Family Tree fans are in luck! We're updating the program for issue #69. I have been a subscriber to ODM for a while and I wanted to let you know how pleased I was with it. I believe it is well worth the cost. While I don't have a use for all the material, I use lots of it. You know the saying: "You can please some of the people some of the time...." I hope the current format will continue for years to come. On issue #64, you had a program for cataloging your software. I think this is an outstanding program and I finally got mine done. I was wondering if, in the future there might be a program for cataloging personal belongings (cameras, VCR, etc.) with the same menu-driven input. It could come in handy with the police and insurance companies. Ray Turner Goldsboro, NC EDITOR'S NOTE: In case you missed it, issue #67 included a program, called HouseHold, that does just what you describe. Order that issue and other back issues by calling the following toll free number: 1-800-831-2694. After reading Jim Evans' letter on On Disk Monthly issue #65, I wanted to write and reassure you that beginners can and do enjoy your programs. It strikes me as a simple matter of economics. Where else could a person get so many programs for so little cost? I don't use lots of the programs for one reason or another but still feel I have a bargain in my subscription. And I was very much a beginner when I first subscribed! I have a Tandy TL 1000 with Deskmate. I use the desktop as my menu. For example, I have a directory named GAMES in which I put all the games. I have set up the list box to show only the EXE files. When I want a particular game, I simply highlight the name of that game in the list box and I'm off and running. I put other programs I use fairly frequently in a directory called OTHER. This has worked for everything except FormKing. That one isn't called up with an EXE file, so I can't get to it from my desktop menu. I have to exit the menu, change directories, then type in Pasrun FormKing. Can you help? Margaret Ostrom Coos Bay, OR EDITOR'S NOTE: FormKing, published way back on issue #20, will be updated in an upcoming issue of On Disk Monthly. It may resolve your problem and also make the task of creating great-looking forms even easier. Why don't you develop a program so you can print the images for Print Shop? Then these can be filed and when you are looking for certain images you will know which disk they're on. D. Machen Montclair, CA EDITOR'S NOTE: Print Shop Utilities IV, published on issue #52, does allow you to print the images and catalog them. We plan to update it on a future issue. Another frequent question regarding Print Shop is how to convert the "old" Print Shop images on On Disk Monthly to New Print Shop. Answer: use the conversion utility that comes with New Print Shop, not the On Disk Monthly utility mentioned above. OBSESSED WITH GAMES I took your dare on Typing Attack, which you made in the flyer for On Disk Monthly issue #65, and after only three tries, I exceeded your staff's high score by 410 points...and it's a great game, too! In order to document my victory for you and your staff, I captured the screen showing my high score of 6,440, printed it out with Word Perfect's Grab program, and finally photocopied and enclosed it herein. I am a computer autodidact of 63, and so take great pleasure in having won out over the formally educated (one assumes) and digitally dexterous, though now defeated, nerds in your office. I can only hope that they are abject at the news. Regarding the other games I have enjoyed from ODM, I am a regular player of Klondike and Pyramid Solitaire, as well as Draw Poker. I have attained top scores of 273 in Klondike, 2,030 in Pyramid and have earned $1,340 in Draw Poker, as well as a full house as high hand. Copies of these scores are also enclosed. If they, too, are higher than the top scores of your staff, I dare you to let me know. I misspent some of my youth in a pool hall, and now it seems that I am misspending some of my elder years playing computer games, which keeps me from completing my autobiography and threatens the safety of my marriage. Where will it all end? Richard D. Curtis San Diego, CA EDITOR'S NOTE: I hope it doesn't ever end for you and congratulations on your scores! Though few of us here at On Disk Monthly have time to play these games for recreational purposes (I have no idea what our high scores might be for Klondike, Pyramid Solitaire or Draw Poker), our Quality Assurance staff plays every game to its limits during testing and they assure me your scores are scores worth crowing about. CONFUSED ABOUT INFOSYS Just a note regarding one of the programs on issue #66 of On Disk Monthly. I found InfoSys to be an excellent addition to my collection of informational utilities, but there is a discrepancy between it, your program on issue #61 called System Speed and the supplier of my fairly new computer. The manufacturer sold it to me as a 386 25MHz. System Speed says it has 36.43MHz (which does vary at times, but always shows over 25MHz). InfoSys, on the other hand, tells me it has 20MHz. Which one is right? Who should I believe? James G. Fellwock Santee, CA EDITOR'S NOTE: InfoSys was designed to be a reasonably safe method of determining the configuration of your computer. Other, sometimes more accurate, techniques for data gathering can crash computers with non-standard disk or memory caching. If the system speed detected by InfoSys doesn't match what your computer's manual says you have, don't worry. This does not mean you've been cheated or that you have a computer with a CPU larger than your manual says it is. It simply means that your CPU is "rated" at that speed. In actuality, moving things through memory may slow your system speed down or your system may show a higher speed value than expected. To gauge your system speed, InfoSys goes into a loop and counts to a certain number. The time taken to run the loop is used to determine how fast a computer is. For example, a 486 will show a higher speed value because the loop fits right into the instruction cache on the chip (so the computer virtually "flies" through the loop), than a 386. System Speed shows a different speed because it uses a different method. InfoSys might also tell you that you have two floppy drives instead of one. Generally, this problem shows up on machines that have one floppy and a hard drive. On these machines, the a: drive is mapped to both a: and b: in the hardware. Machines with these configurations will show two drives because that's what the computer "sees." Also, InfoSys might report that you have less memory than you actually have. Why? There is no standard way to access that portion of memory between 640K and 1MB. DOS reserves this area for video memory, BIOS and device drivers. Special software is needed to make this "extra" memory available to the system. Some machines have this software and others do not. InfoSys also might not show extra memory above 1MB. This especially might happen on the PS/X lines of computers from IBM. Some extended memory cards on the microchannel bus will not show up using the standard, safe methods that InfoSys uses to find extended memory. Finally, when InfoSys was developed, a 486 machine was not readily available for testing. Therefore, the program does not recognize a 486 and will list it as a 386. This problem should have been corrected before publication. Likewise, an SVGA monitor was not available for testing, but the difficulties associated with detecting an SVGA monitor would probably have netted the same results--InfoSys "sees" an SVGA monitor as a VGA monitor.