Dear friends:

Welcome to On Disk Monthly's special 75th Issue Celebration!
This issue contains some of our most popular previously-
published programs. All have been updated and/or upgraded in
some way. For example, we added mouse support to Credit Card
Tracker, fixed a bug or two in Check Tracker, and added new
features (as well as gave facelifts) to Change Directory!
Plus, FindMe! Plus and Swiftview. We're sure you're going to
enjoy each of these great programs!

Best of all, when you work the special Super Crossword
puzzle (located in the Just For Fun section of ODM), you'll
be rewarded with a phrase that's your entry into our 75th
Issue Celebration Drawing. For more on this, including prize
information (FREE software!) and an entry form, choose the
"75th Issue Drawing" button in the Departments menu. If you
like the idea of regular drawings or score-based contests,
let me know. We're thinking about including them on a
regular basis.

We don't do special issues like this one very often, but we
felt that producing our 75th consecutive issue was worth
celebrating by sharing some of our best past work with you.
And, as I mentioned last month, we also needed to give a
couple of our hardworking programmers some extra development
time on our upcoming chess game and paint program--both of
which are currently under development.

I wish I could share a graphical "sneak peak" with you, but
that's not practical. I can, however, tell you why I'm QUITE
excited by these two upcoming On Disk Monthly features. The
chess program graphics are simply fantastic--sort of Star
Wars meets Kasparov. You can play the computer or your
favorite human opponent. And you'll be able to learn opening
and closing chess moves as you play! The paint program is
not only going to look great, it's going to give many of you
the ability to take better advantage of the .PCX graphics we
give you on every other issue...and of your own creativity.
You'll be able to load, edit and save graphics in the
following formats: .PCX, .BMP, .LBM and .GIF. You'll love to
"play" with this program in modes from four-color CGA up to
256-color VGA. If you've already got a paint program, I urge
you to try this one before you give it a "thumbs down." It
may contain just the right interface and mix of functions
for you.

We've also just started work on a Cribbage game--per your
many requests. You'll see it a couple of issues down the
road. This one won't be a "take off" on Cribbage; it'll be
the real thing.

Many of you have mailed in your Graphics Surveys, but not
all of you. If you missed it, check out the Editor's Corner
Graphics Survey on issue #73. Please take time to complete
and mail this survey. We plan to use this information to
make some major decisions about the future direction of On
Disk Monthly.

Finally, please don't let your subscription lapse because
you're afraid we're going to increase our minimum graphics
requirement and leave you "out in the cold." If we do decide
make changes at some point in the future, rest assured that
we'll try to produce products that will keep Softdisk
software coming to YOUR mailbox EVERY month.

Until next time...happy computing!

Ronda Faries
ODM Product Manager