^CLetters From Our Subscribers
^Canswered by Sean Golden

This file contains letters from our subscribers, along with answers from our editors and programmers.  We also have a file of letters which contains comments from our subscribers that don't need a response.  That file is available as our "SUBSCRIBER COMMENTS" column.

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To On Disk Monthly:

I have found that the disks you have sent me are only of minimal use.  I feel that the graphics are not up to par with what I am accustomed to.  There was nothing on the bonus disk that I could or even would use.  The program on issue #80 called Auto Tracker may be of some use, I have not decided yet.  The program on disk #79, Backdroppers, wallpaper for Windows is useful and is something that I have and will use.

The only thing that I want for you to do is to develop more programs for the Windows environment.  I do not use DOS very much except the Double Space and the MemMaker in DOS 6.0 and DOSSHELL to clean up my hard disk.  I still feel that the cost of your subscription is a bargain.

Cordially,
Robert Kelley

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Mr. Kelley:

Thank you for writing us.  I hope you are glad to see our latest issues, with a few more Windows items on them.  I would particularly like to hear how you liked Win Decor and Win2Do.  I understand your concerns about the quality of our clip art.  This is actually a fairly common complaint.  Usually it is from people who feel that Print Shop is outdated and that our .PCX clip art should be in color.

Well, we have begun publishing more color .PCX artwork, along with some .BMP files that should increase our customers' appreciation of our art department.  I can also tell you that we are experimenting with Postscript graphics, although we aren't yet sure how many of our customers will be able to use them.  We would also like to provide some Print Shop Deluxe graphics, but the format for those files is a deeply guarded trade secret, at least for now.

Sean Golden, ODM Product Manager

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Dear ODM:

Master Copy is very good.  Thanks!  Event Director will be handy.  Your Print Shop graphics are always good.  I like the ShowToons.  You have an Auto Tracker, Check Tracker & Coupon Tracker (all good programs) now, how about a Home Repair & Upkeep Tracker?

James E. Pugh

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Mr. Pugh:

Hmmm...  It's like you've been reading my mind.  Actually we have discussed a wide range of programs that are similar to Auto Tracker.  Home Repair and Upkeep Tracker may be a good idea, but it's a horrible name!  How about Home Upkeep and Repair Tracker ("HURT")?  Seriously, we have discussed just such a program.  I can't promise you anything, but don't be surprised if you see something like it in a few months.

Sean Golden, ODM Product Manager

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Dear Sirs:

I would like to make some comments on your programs on the following topics:

SCREEN SAVERS
They are very nice to have, but just how many screen savers does anyone need?  I suppose it depends on the person, but you've been publishing too many for my subscription dollar lately.

GAMES
I love most of your games.  Unfortunately so does my brother, especially Conflagration, Relix, Circuitry and Nucleon.  He has an Apple IIe, and when he sees a great game on my IBM compatible I have a real job on my hands getting my computer back.  I tried getting him a subscription to your Apple II product, but it didn't have the games he wanted so he didn't renew.  Is there any way you can get your programmers together and translate some of your programs and make a cross listing for the different computers?

I also have to agree with Mrs. Pepe of Lufkin, TX (issue 81) when she complained about all the ghosts and such in your games.  Some of your games are heavily into occultic and pagan mythology, theology and symbolism, particularly Tiles of the Nile, Dark Design I and Legends of Murder I and II.

I try to be tolerant of this because you are serving a diverse audience, but these games went too far.  As a born-again Christian, I won't play them and I'm offended by this kind of material being presented to me as an innocuous game.  I don't expect you to write games loaded with Christian theology and symbolism, so please be more sensitive in turn to the content of your games.  There are a lot of Christians who use computers too, and we deserve the same respect for our beliefs accorded to non-Christian religions.  Tiles of the Nile could have been written with an Egyptian theme without getting into Egyptian paganism.

As to the other games, is it really necessary to have sorcery and spell-casting as an integral part of the game?  Sherlock Holmes and many other great fictional detectives were never hindered in solving a case for not being able to cast fireballs, heal themselves, fight with monsters, or have a non-human assistant.

VGA UPGRADE
Your graphics have been done exceptionally well lately.  My compliments to your artists.  I understand technology marches on, but don't forget those of us who have older computers which meet our daily needs just fine and don't want to spend the money to upgrade just to play games.  A well scripted game will play well even in CGA or EGA graphics, whereas a poor one won't be helped no matter how beautifully done the graphics are.

Please don't cram your games full of all sorts of graphics at the expense of programming time for well-done puzzles or plot lines.  Just because you can draw all sorts of different pictures of monsters in multiple colors doesn't mean it is going to contribute to the game.

TSR PROGRAMS
I try to stretch my TSR's as far as possible before adding another one.  You have had some programs with overlapping functions, some limited to one specialized use.  I prefer more general programs like Pop-up Notepad, which can be used for several purposes.  For example, rather than use Message Center, I can create a form in Pop-Up NotePad and use only one TSR instead of two.

CLIP ART
If you write any further versions of a viewer, would you consider getting rid of that left side bar with the command list in favor of a one line menu bar?  It would give a much bigger working area for the images.

ONE USE PROGRAMS
Such as: Word-Up, Crossword Puzzles, Crypto-Sleuth etc.
I liked Crypto-Sleuth because I like cryptograms, especially ones with a "cheat" function when I'm stuck!  However, this program is of limited use (like Word-Up and the crossword puzzles) because once you solve and memorize all of the puzzles, that is all the enjoyment you get out of it.  Would you consider putting these types of programs in the "Just For Fun" section?  Seeing programs like this listed in the menu raises my expectations for the disk.
I look for new long-term-use programs in the menu listing.  I think this is one area where your old text menu system actually had an advantage over your new system.  Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing a shorter menu, so long as the items performed as I expect them to.

Well, enough said, and probably more than enough.  Hope it helps.

Sincerely,
Ellen Karickhoff

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Ms. Karickhoff:

Thank you for your long and detailed letter.  I'm sorry I couldn't publish the entire letter here and I hope you forgive my editing of your letter for space.  I tried to get the main gist of your problems, suggestions etc.  I'll try to answer your letter in the same format as your own:

SCREEN SAVERS
Hmmm... now if there is a limit to the usefulness and/or desirability of screen savers, why has After Dark and More After Dark been at the top of the best-seller list for the last six months?  Because people like them, and everyone's tastes are different.  I don't think we have flooded our disk with screen savers, we've only published three in six months.  The fact is, they are fairly easy to write and we have actually received very good grades on them.

GAMES
Why don't we publish the same games on Softdisk for the Apple II as we do on ODM?  Well, the truth is that we do, in fact, make every effort to translate games when it is feasible.  Unfortunately, it is not always feasible.  Keep in mind that some of our games are submitted by free-lance programmers, and there is little likelihood of getting programs that are duplicated on different platforms from separate free-lance sources.  We also usually have our in-house programmers busily working on projects for the next several months.  Eventually we dig our heads out of the ground, look around and say "Hey!  Lee just published a great game on Diskworld!  We can translate that..."  and voila!  Circuitry is born.

GAMES (Religious concerns...)
We hear this a lot from people who have purchased our Gamer's Edge products.  It's not so common with On Disk Monthly games, but we do get other letters which agree with your sentiments.  Assume for a moment that I agree with you.  That I, too, feel that these games are not in the best interest of the Christian faith.  Why would I publish such games?   Think about it.  A game has to have some sort of conflict to be entertaining.  You can't simply roam around a dungeon picking up interesting religious artifacts, that would be boring!    The simple fact is that games require some challenge, and the "hero" must have some weapons to fight with.  Even Sherlock Holmes had his own run-ins with the supernatural (The Hound of the Baskervilles, for example).

Why cast spells?  Because spell-casting is familiar to game-players, and not only from computer games.  We could replace spell-casting with traditional weapons, but then we get letters from parents who accuse of us encouraging their children to acquire and use guns.  Many people actually feel that the fantasy aspect of these games is a positive thing, since nobody can actually CAST a fireball.  If a child can't cast a fireball, then he can't use it on his teacher.  If he can shoot a gun, then he MIGHT use a gun on his teacher.  Do you see the logic?

Actually, I like games like Papu, where the strategy of the game is the focus.  I don't particularly like games like Legends of Murder, but not because of any religious problems, I just like to solve puzzles.

VGA GRAPHICS
I see your point, but you have to understand that On Disk Monthly is a product with many goals and purposes, but one that overrides all the others.  On Disk Monthly must make money.  We were losing too many subscribers who said we were wallowing in the past.  VGA is a seven-year old standard.  We should have adopted it a long time ago.  Also, consider the audience we have to please.  People are much more visually stimulated today than they were even a few years ago.  Jaded, in fact.  The astonishing graphic effects they see over and over again on television commercials has made the average computer user very intolerant of low-resolution graphics.  I know because I am one of them.  Your comment about graphics not improving game play may be true, but if there is identical effort involved in creating CGA or VGA graphics (it is sometimes easier to create the VGA graphics) then the game play itself is not really related to the graphics at all.  Since they are not related, why not try for the best look you can?

TSR PROGRAMS
I agree with you one-hundred percent.

CLIP ART
Again I find myself in agreement with you.

ONE USE PROGRAMS
Our general policy is to put any new puzzle driver (Crossword, Word-Up, etc) in the main icon area the first time we publish it.  Further publication usually goes into the Just For Fun area. 

Sean Golden, ODM Product Manager.

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Dear Mr. Golden:

I was just reviewing the letters in the MAILBAG feature of ISSUE 82 and would like to strongly second the suggestions of Mr. Hal Flint about what amounts to a "bibliography program."

Although bibliography programs are available they are, as Mr. Flint suggests, either quite expensive or far more complicated than required by most of us who construct bibliographies. For many years I placed information on 3x5 cards according to major and minor headings but the filing of various papers, reprints, magazine clippings, etc. became a major problem.  I eventually began to file items sequentially according to an accession number without regard to the content hoping one day to find a program which would let me use the information in our VAX.  Alas that never happened and I have tons of information filed by accession number with KEY WORDS that is of only limited use to me.

To the excellent suggestions of Mr. Flint, I would only request that any such program have a field for KEY WORDS and that one be able to sort not only by author, title, etc., but on one or more of the key words.  I'm a geologist and I might be interested in sorting my SANDSTONE file not only on the keyword "sandstone" but perhaps on "sandstone, cement, quartz."

I agree with some of your respondents that games are of little interest, but what the heck, you do have a broad market to cater to and there's so much else that is useful and interesting that the inclusion of games doesn't really detract from your excellent service.

Keep up the good work and good luck to you in your new challenge.

Cordially,
J. Cotter Tharin

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Mr. Tharin:

Thank you for your letter.  You might be interested to know that our games are almost always the most frequently appreciated items on our disks.

As far as a bibliography program is concerned, you actually have an ally here in our programming office.  I can't promise anything, but it seems like a project we might tackle.  I'll talk with my staff about it.

Sean Golden, ODM Product Manager

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Dear ODM:

Master Copy is great!  Worth more than the price of the disk!  Still, Windows users got one more program than I did, and I resent that!

How would I know whether Win Decor was easy to use or not?  I do know that HATE is the word for how I feel about it.

I won't much longer buy disks with Windows programs that you KNOW I don't want and can't use.

You'd better start separating DOS and Windows subscribers.  We DOS users got 5 programs this time.  Windows users got 6.  We paid the same... NOT FOR LONG!!

George Woolfson

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Mr. Woolfson:

Thank you for taking the time to write to us with your concerns.  I do understand your point of view even if I may not agree with it.

We are looking into the possibility of creating two separate disks, one for DOS and one for Windows.  I'd like to pull that off, but I simply don't have the resources right now.

-Sean Golden, Product Manager

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Dear Softdisk Rep:

I'm writing this to tell you that I'm not very happy with my recent purchase of your American Sign Language Tutor.  Your program does a fair job of quizzing the user in finger spelling, though the rather crude line drawings are confusing at times.  However this is only a very incidental aspect of ASL, it is indeed "the basics."

I recently completed a 5 session course at work, "Sign Language 1."  SL1 covered 168 common signs, as opposed to your software's 50.  This instructor used some of her time to talk about the history, grammar and logic of ASL.  For example, how changing the "C" hands used in signing a "car" to "V" hands, "T" hands could change the sign to "van," "truck," etc.  Your software offered its 50 signs with neither logical order nor word of explanation.  A couple of text files of such material would have been both helpful and essential to the beginning student that you target.  This is not a good product and it reflects very badly on you.

Sincerely
Walter A. Deeter

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Mr. Deeter:

Your letter was actually in response to one of our programs that is available from Softdisk Publishing on the Prodigy network, in the Download Superstore section.  However, we did publish the program on an issue of ODM so I decided to answer it here.

Your comments are very pointed, and bring out a major problem in producing monthly software.  We only have a month to complete a project.  Does that mean that we should not tackle any project that takes more than a month to bring up to the expectations of someone who has taken a supervised, five-part course on the subject?  Think about it.  Our program, limited as it may be, does indeed teach people, in your own words, the BASICS of American Sign Language.  If they master the program, and learn nothing else about sign language, they could still communicate with a deaf person.

Yes, I agree that the subject of sign language is much wider than our program, but then so is just about every subject.  I have, on this issue, published an astronomy essay and quiz.  Are you suggesting that since it does not provide a detailed discussion of the General Theory of Relativity that it is worthless?  I hope not.  As a monthly software product we can cover a broad range of subjects, but very few of the subjects will be covered deeply.  There isn't much I can do about this so long as I have the limited resources available to me.  I hope you understand.

Sean Golden, ODM Product Manager
