Welcome to the October issue of Update Computer Systems and the first issue that has been edited and published by my wife, Carol, and I. It is my hope that there will be many more issues of this magazine to pass into your hands. Most of you who are reading this will be either people new to the magazine or people who have re-newed their subscription to Updates. The rest of you have not subscribed before and have received this copy mysteriously in your mailbox as an inducement to get you to subscribe…or have not re-newed and I am sending you this in the hopes of jarring your memory to send in your check or money order. We are not a gigantic magazine and are supported by your subscriptions alone. The ads you see in the magazine are there on an exchange basis. We promote the company making the ad and expect to be promoted to their customers. A fair and even exchange. When we do a review on a Sinclair program or hardware item we will be bound to tell you only the truth. We will not worry about losing an ad account.
We are running about two weeks behind where I had expected to be for a mailout date on this issue. I blame most of it on defective hardware that has been returned for repair, and have since purchased some backup hardware to fill in (and so I will not be slowed down by a second such occurrence in the future).
Tim Stoddard did not get his Trump Card article to us in time for this issue, but it should be back with us in the January issue. This series puts to shame the manual that came with the purchase of the Trump Card, and I look forward to seeing the rest of the series.
In this issue we are doing some reruns on the area of Sinclair desktop publishing, by Mike Felerski, in order to catch up those of you who were not familiar with this series from the Indiana Sinclair Timex Users Group Newsletter. All new material is planned for the January issue, along with coverage of the QL desktop publishing programs. I also encourage the submission of material in this (and all) areas from any of you. UPDATE ENCOURAGES writers to submit articles, utilities and programs for publication. The FORMAT is very relaxed. Just pay attention to the width of the pages and allow 3/4 inch top and bottom and make the left and right margins wide enough to accommodate a 3 hole punch that does not cut out some of the text. We have enlarge and reduction capability to adjust print to fit a page. Most important is legibility. Draft quality dot matrix does not reproduce well. Print size preference is ELITE 12 characters per inch. PICA 10 characters per inch is OK also, but please no condensed print. If the article has illustrations, schematics, pictures, figures, then let us know how to organize them.
Programs for the TS2068 to publish may be LLISTED in 32 chr lines, but that is not solely necessary. Our preference is for programs designed to operate on DISK DRIVES. We would even on occasion entertain a program for the TS1000, if it is either disk drive specific, or concerns its use in conjunction with the TS2068, Spectrum, QL or the Z88. Please do not make submissions on cassette tape under any conditions, use disk (3 1/2, 5 1/4, ssdd, dsdd, dsqd, 40, 80 track, etc. are all okay) or hard copy (if hardcopy only then enclose two copies).
Sinclair QL programs and utilities should be supplied on either disk or microdrive cartridge. All programs must be usable on an UNEXPANDED QL. If programs are supplied on disk, then please include a version that will run on microdrive.
Z88 programs should either be hardcopy or on disk in QL or IBM format. To all of the rules given above there are exceptions. These are just things that make editing easier.