CFOG's PIP, February 1988, Volume 7 No. 1, Whole No. 63, page 1

PIP Editor's Message

With the permission of the CFOG Board of Directors I am altering the publication schedule of PIP. The intent is to furnisch you, subject to CFOG finances, with almost as many pages of information as we have in the past, but in fewer packages. In the past 'customary' issue has been 12 pages, issued monthly. One page, the back page, is reserved for standard information and the address panel. A quarter of page two is the masthead. An eighth of page one is the logo. Net, you get 10.625 pages or 127.5 pages a year.

The new schedule will call for eight issues of 16 pages each. With the same standard information per issue you'll get 109 pages a year. If CFOG finances permit we'll run more pages in some issues and give you just as much or more as before.

Why are we doing this? Well, it will provide us with some small economies, since bulk rate postage is the same [at present] up to 3.2 ounces, so a copy of PIP costs the same to mail whether it is 8 pages, 12 pages, or 24 pages. Thus, fewer mailings mean less postage expense. Since postage is slated to rise in the Spring, that saving will be over $100 per year. There should be some small economies in the cost of the mailing process, since we'll only pay Modern Impressions to label and mail eight times a year instead of twelve.

But really we're doing it because it suits the convenience of the Editor who finds the process of getting geared up as often as is required for mothly issues a drag. It's not that much work to put out a 16 or 20 page issue.

The schedule will run something like this: the first issue will go to the printer about February 15. It won't hit the mail for another week, and you won't see it until about March 1. After that each issue will run about six weeks later: March 28, May 11, June 22, August 10, September 21, November 2, December 14. The issues will bear those dates, regardless of the actual dates of 'publication'.

Just to heighten the confusion, we're making two additional changes. First, we've started a new volume number with the first issue of 1988: volume 7. Volume 6 therefore contains only 2 issues, November and December of 1987. Second, we're going to do something I've done with every publication of this sort I've edited in the past: consecutive page numbering. That means that the March 28 issue will begin with page 17. Actually, this should make it easier for you: when we refer to old articles by volume and page you'll be able to find them much faster. Well maybe not old articles, but those from 1988 on. To reflect this change, and to make the numbering meaningful in terms of finding articles, the footer on each page has been changed to carry the publication's name, the volume and date, and the page number.

Complaints accompanied by an article submitted for publication in PIP, no shorter than 15K bytes in length, suitably edited and ready for publication, will given serious consideration. Other complaints will properly filed.

MS-DOS Users, Renew!

There's a listing in this issue of PIP of new files on the RCPM for MS-DOS useres. These files are also being added to our disk library so they'll be available for copying at meetings. If you've switched to MS-DOS, CFOG is still the place for you go load up on public domain software and shareware. If you had considered dropping CFOG because we don't support MS-DOS, reconsider. It's not too late.

Downtown Meetings

We get only a few members at our downtown meetings. They are on the second Thursday of each month at 6:00 p.m. at 55 West Monroe Street, #2400. Pizza from Edwardo's is served [$6.50] for those who don't have a chance to go home and eat first.

The downtown meetings do not normally have a planned program. We try to deal with as many individual problems as we can on a personal level. There are several Osborne and Kaypro CP/M systems in the office where the meetings are held, and a Kaypro 16 MS-DOS system, so it's not necessary to bring a computer for disk copying. Both MS-DOS and CP/M libraries are available.

Join us.