Dear Readers,
I owe all of you an apology – that is for certain. But please forgive me if I keep it short and sweet. We have quite a bit of material to cover in this issue, and I don’t want to waste too much space on apologies.
In view of our persistent difficulties in sticking to a monthly schedule, we have decided to make a change. From now on TS Horizons will be published every six weeks instead of monthly. At the bottom of this page is a schedule we intend to hold to come heck or high water. Of course, if you are a current subscriber you will still be getting 12 issues of TS Horizons for your $15 subscription.
SUBSCRIPTION RATE CHANGE
However we are planning to change that for new subscriptions and renewals that we receive after March 31. Our new subscription rate will become $15 for 9 issues, and back issues will be sold for $2.50 each. We feel that these increases will be very helpful in creating a new, more dependable TSH than has been seen recently.
Another note to subscribers. In the address label of every issue of TSH that you receive is a special code that tells you when your subscription started and when it will expire. This code is two 2-digit numbers seperated by a hyphen or dash. The first number tells you the issue number of the first issue of TS Horizons you received as part of your subscription. The second number tells the final issue you are to receive unless you renew your subscription.
Note: On two occasions in the past we have made our mailing list available to others companies to use for direct mail. Both of these occassions were to respectable, Timex supporting dealers who were mailing catalogs of Timex related products. And in both cases the lists were for them to use only one time. The point I’d like to make is that if you are a subscriber and you would rather not have your name and address used by anyone but TS Horizons just drop us a postcard and we will respect your wishes. (We received a letter late last year from a subscriber who had received a chain letter from a company that apparently had access to our mailing list – the address label on the letter exactly matched his TSH subscription label. At one time we had an outside mailing list service, and they said part of our list had been accidentally put on the wrong disk by mistake and had been released to another one of their clients. At any rate we now manage our own list in house, and that should not happen again. We apologize to those who have received any unwanted junk mail.)
CHANGE OF ADDRESS
By the way, we would like to remind everyone that if you are planning to move, please send us your change of address notification as soon as possible. Now that our mailing list is kept in house we are able to process changes more quickly, however TSH is mailed by third class mail, so even if the post office has your change of address on file, in most cases if we mail TS Horizons to your old address they would not forward it to you. Also please be sure to include the zip code of your old address.
UPCOMING MIDWEST TS COMPUTERFEST (May 3rd &4th)
Some very exciting meetings have been taking place in Cincinnati Ohio lately. My favorite city will be the site of the First Annual Midwest Timex Sinclair Computerfest. I was initially very pessimistic about the prospects for such an event, but now I’m convinced it has the potential to be a true success. The committee that planned the Fest (made up of TS users from Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky) has done a survey to sample the interest in the event, and we’ve been quite pleased. Although it’s still early to say for sure, from the initial response we feel we could have as many as 1000 or more attendees. The Ramada Inn where we have reserved facilities has already gotten quite a few room reservations for the Computerfest. I got a phone call from a subscriber in Kansas City who will be flying in for the weekend.
The very active TS User Groups in Columbus, Cleaveland, and Cincinnati, have already reserved display tables. (I may even try to round up the semi-active Portsmouth user group.) Zebra Systems, Aerco, E. Arthur Brown, G. Russell Electronics and other companies have already reserved display space. I’m really looking forward to meeting these people.
What can you expect if you come to the Fest. Well, we’ve invited the dealers who will be there to give seminars and answer questions about their products. We will be having other knowledeable speakers also. If you’ve ever wanted to see a QL, or disk drives for the TS 2068 or 1000, or some other product up close, here’s a great chance. We’re also planning a “swap-fest”, where you can buy, sell our trade used hardware, software and books with other users. User groups have original and public domain software that you can copy for free or at a nominal cost. (Pirating of copyright software will be strictly prohibited. The entire committee has agreed that such pirating would be very damaging to purpose of the computerfest, and we will do everything we can to make sure it does not take place.)
Also we will try to provide information on activities in the Cincinnati area to make the trip enjoyable for your entire family – if you decide to bring them, and they aren’t interested in the Computerfest.
Cincinnati is a beautiful city and if it’s within your means you should consider coming to this historic event. Bring your family and make it a vacation. Riverfront Stadium, Cincinnati Zoo, Kings Island and other theme parks, and several 5-star restaurants are located in the area. A registration form and more information are found on the next page. We’ll have more on the convention in the next issue.
IN THIS ISSUE
We have a present for all of you TS 2068 users. Turn to pages 16 and 17 of this issue. The yellow insert there is a bonus from Zebra Systems. The present is strip at the bottom of the pages. This is a special keyword finder that can be taped on the top of your 2068. With it you can rapidly find any keyword or symbol without looking it up in your manual. (If you don’t want to mangle your magazine you can Xerox it in two pieces and tape them together). This bonus appears through the courtesy of Banta Software.
We hope to have a similar cut-out and page of goodies for TS1000/ZX81 users next issue.
There are a lot of good words I’d like to say about Peter McMullin, Bob Woish and our other contributors in this issue, but I’m afraid we don’t have the room. Thank you all, subscribers and contributors for your patience and understanding. That makes it all worthwhile for me.
See YOU in six weeks,
Rick Duncan
Cover Date Issue No. Ad Deadline February/March 17 February 7 April 18 March 21 May/June 19 May 2 July 20 June 13 August 21 July 25 September/October 22 September 5 November 23 October 17 December 24 November 14