^C^1Diskovery
^Cby
^CVal J. Golding

VIEW FROM THE SOUTH
-------------------
  It's interesting how one's preconceived notions of surroundings and
environment change with actual exposure.  For example, we came to Shreveport
from Seattle, by way of California.  In the Northwest we had become accustomed
to temperate summers and chilly, occasionally snowy, winters.  Our ideas of the
south were of year-round heat waves, high humidity and afternoon
thundershowers.

  Our first trip here in late August found the expected conditions of high
temperature and humidity, but surprise, the degree of physical discomfort was
NOT as expected, and in fact, compared to the far east, was downright pleasant.

  What about the balmy winters?  Here too, we should have known better. Within
a month or so of our arrival, we found sub-freezing temperatures much like we
had left behind in Seattle.  As can be seen, one's subjective view is often far
from accurate.

FIRST THE NEWS...
-----------------
  If you are a new Big Blue Disk reader, it might therefore be a good time to
examine what a disk magazine is and is not.  In fact, we'd be willing to bet
you thought it was pretty much like a printed magazine except designed to be
viewed on a video screen.  We hope instead that you have been pleasantly
surprised, as were we on our first exposure.

  What is it then, that makes a disk magazine different?  It is more than
articles converted to text file form. It is more than a group of unrelated
programs placed haphazardly on a disk. It is all these things and more.

  Big Blue Disk -- YOUR magazette -- is a gestalt; the whole is greater than
the sum of its parts.  Like many new products, we've gone through a stage of
growing pains.  We goofed when we thought we were compatible with every PC
around.  But we've also made amends; Big Blue Disk is guaranteed, so when we
have found a problem, we've gone to work on it, the better to ply you with,
says "Blue."  Your mail tells us you enjoy Big Blue Disk, our sales tell us you
enjoy it.  But, gentle reader, we want to know what we can do so you will enjoy
it more.  Write!

  Somehow our little sermon above distracted us from the main topic: Big Blue
Disk features you shouldn't miss this month.

...THEN THE VIEWS:
------------------
  A couple of games are in this month's headlines, two from our growing
collection which caught our fancy.  Movie Mogul from the Chiang Brothers is an
example of one we've "ported over" from our sister magazine Softdisk.  This is
one that we have spent a lot of time on, playing at home.  Somehow it's a real
challenge to try and top the record set by the last film you produced.  We're
not gonna tell you any details, but: we'll award a free one year's extension
to your Big Blue Disk subscription to the three people who mail us a disk with
the highest returns in these categories: greatest revenue, greatest profit and
highest percentage returned.  (Copy the file ^1HMMHS.DAT^0 from BIG BLUE DISK onto 
the disk you send; this file will contain the record of your scores after you 
have played Movie Mogul.  Be sure to copy this file before you use the Reset 
High Scores option, since this will erase any previously-saved scores.  
Another thing:  Don't try to cheat by editing the score file.  We have ways 
of knowing when you have done this, and all such entries will be 
disqualified.)  Deadline: May 31, 1987.  Address your entries to:  
     Movie Mogul 
     Big Blue Disk
     P.O. Box 30008
     Shreveport, LA 71130-0008.

  The other game is Superdots.  This is the old-fashioned game of connect the
dots on a grid and claim a square, but with a new twist made possible by the
computer: there are a few invisible dots and some magic dots, all of which add
challenge to the game.

  One special feature we want to mention is our Blue Plate Special, a Power
Reading Demo from LSR Learning Associates.  It certainly took us aback when we
found out how low our comprehension was.  Just incidentally, we have copies of
the complete speed reading course available at discount prices for our
subscribers and readers.  See the flyer enclosed in the Big Blue Disk package.

  Sure wish we had room to tell you about every single game and feature in this
issue, but then if we did that, what would we do with the table of contents?

...AND FINALLY THE BLUES:
-------------------------
  Over the introductory period for Big Blue Disk, as we indicated above, we
found several areas where we didn't supply you with sufficient information to
properly run Big Blue Disk.  A lot of our mail has asked us things like how to
copy Big Blue Disk to your hard drive.  When you know how, it's a piece of
cake, but it's our responsibility to fill you in.

SHOWING OUR TRUE COLORS:
------------------------
   For some users our menu colors are unreadable. Our disk checks your video 
adapter and tailors its display colors according to what it finds. Still, you 
may not think the colors are readable.  So we have added an option to our 
disk. If you start BIG BLUE DISK by typing "GO M" instead of just "GO", then 
the menu colors will look good on a monochrome monitor, with any display 
adapter.  In this mode, title graphics will not be displayed, but can still 
run programs which require graphics. 

  Conversely, typing "GO C" will produce a colored display, but still will not 
let you display title graphics or run graphic programs if you do not have a 
CGA-compatible display adapter. 

  These options will only affect how our menus and text are displayed; other 
programs on BIG BLUE DISK have their own systems for determining display 
colors, and will not generally be affected by the "M" and "C" options. In most 
cases, programs on BIG BLUE DISK are designed to look good on any kind of 
monitor. 

  The "M" and "C" options are available on issues of BIG BLUE DISK starting
with issue number 4.

STOP THE SWAP:
--------------
  Randolph M. Cox of Normal IL has suggested a way to 
avoid the annoying disk swap when you run BIG BLUE DISK on single-drive 
systems.

^CAVOIDING THE NEED TO INSERT ^1COMMAND.COM
^CON SINGLE-DISK SYSTEMS

  Copy the file ^1COMMAND.COM^0 to a RAM-disk and tell DOS where to look.  The 
procedure is as follows: 

1.  Use whichever RAMdisk software you have to create a small RAMdisk as
drive C.  I have found that the VDISK program that comes with DOS 3.x is much 
better than the one included with the IBM memory sidecard.  If you only have 
256K, make the drive just big enough to hold ^1COMMAND.COM^0.

2.  Add the following commands to your ^1AUTOEXEC.BAT^0 file:

                  ^1COPY A:COMMAND.COM C:
                  ^1PATH C:\
                  ^1SET COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM

  The Set command tells DOS where to look for ^1COMMAND.COM^0 and the Path command
says to look on drive C: if a program is not found on the default drive.  This
is very helpful if you have more memory that you can allocate to the RAM-disk.
I keep programs such as ^1label^0, ^1edlin^0, and ^1chkdsk^0 on my RAMdisk at most times.

  I hope that this procedure will make use of your PCjr more enjoyable.

  If you need a RAMdisk program, there is one called "MemBrain" for download 
on our BBS, SOFT FIDO, at (318) 636-4402. 
  
  Caution: this scheme of changing the COMSPEC works properly only in DOS 
versions 3.0 and later.  Also, if you create a RAMdisk on a 256K system, there 
might not be sufficient free memory to run all BIG BLUE DISK programs. 

DOING IT THE HARD (DISK) WAY
----------------------------
  Several readers have been copying BIG BLUE DISK to their hard disks for 
faster access.  This works for single-disk issues (such as numbers 1 and 2).  
However, double-disk issues pose a problem.  The menu system still prompts you 
to "insert disk 2" (or disk 1) before it will let you continue, and then says 
it can't find the disk.

  Here is the fix:  Edit the file ^1STATUS.DAT^0, which is on all issues of BIG 
BLUE DISK, and is used to tell which disk is in your drive. 

  First, copy all files from both disks onto a single subdirectory of your 
hard disk.  Ignore duplicate filenames.  (Exception:  Issue #4 had different 
files named ^1GO.BAT^0 on disks 1 and 2; the first one is needed to run BIG BLUE 
DISK while the second pertained to PC-WRITE.  Don't place the contents of both 
disks of that issue onto the same subdirectory of your drive.  We will try to 
avoid such conflicts in the future.) 

  Then edit the ^1STATUS.DAT^0 file.  Edit only the copy on your hard disk; leave 
the original disk alone.  You can use any text editing program (such as the 
BlueLine editor on BIG BLUE DISK) to make the changes to the file. 

  Find the line in ^1STATUS.DAT^0 with the month and year of the issue, like 
"March, 1987".  The line after this contains the disk number, which will be 
either 1 or 2.  Change this number to a zero (0).  Then save the file. 

  Now BIG BLUE DISK will not request disk swaps.  If you get an error message 
saying the ^1STATUS.DAT^0 file has been corrupted, re-copy it from the original 
disk and try again; you probably made a mistake in editing it.  (You DID keep 
the original intact, rather than making modifications directly to it, didn't 
you?)
