The Editor's notes
Robert Lock, Editor/Publisher
Beginning in the May issue, you'll see a new and expanded Reader's Feedback column. One part will be as we've done in the past, with reader input regarding the Editor's Feedback card. (For those of you new to COMPUTE!, The Editor's Feedback card is your input "hotline" ... I read every single one that comes in, and use them to help with planning, problems, and so on.)
The second, and new, part of the column is called Ask The Readers. When you're trying to solve a particular programming or technical problem, and can't get it solved, drop a short note to Ask The Readers, c/o COMPUTE!, P.O. Box 5406, Greensboro, NC 27403 USA. If we think it's a shared problem, we'll run it, and in later issues run responses from our panel of experts (other readers who respond with answers). Don't be intimidated if you think it's a simple problem; conversely, don't be untimidated if you think the solution is simple. For beginner's, those are frequently the toughest kind.
Note To Our Authors— No Back Issues!
Recently, we've been running more and more into the problem of COMPUTE! authors referring back to various and sundry early issues of COMPUTE! One problem this causes is that many of our readers don't have access to back issues. Please remember this in your articles. It's fine to refer back to an earlier issue, but please take the additional time to incorporate the information from that article that's necessary to your own point. Here's our checklist of available back issues:
Issue 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 SOLD OUT
Issue 8, 9 and 10 Still available
If you're interested in ordering back issues, we've an ad in here someplace called COMPUTE'S Book Corner. You'll also be pleased to know that we're putting together our first three books:
COMPUTE!'s First Book of Atari
COMPUTE!'s First Book of PET/CBM
COMPUTE!'s First Book of Educational Computing
We'll tell you more about these next time, but we expect to be releasing them in the June/July time frame. We'll send your local dealer information as soon as it's available.
February's Mailing Problems And Other Imprecisions. Ouch! Groan!
We have been aware that your subscription copies are reaching you later than store copies reach dealers. We are actively working on resolving the disparity, so no group of readers, whether newsstand or subscriber, is discriminated against. In this effort to promote timeliness and maintain quality, you subscribers will notice that we've returned to mailing the magazine in an envelope. This is done entirely to protect the magazine.
February's Problem
As far as we can tell, everyone received their magazine, albeit late. Murphey struck hard, but hopefully not again. As part of our effort to improve your speed of home delivery, we changed our mailing services to be geographically closer to our printer. Unfortunately, the local post office had not dealt with a magazine with a volume such as ours before and told our mailing personnel that the magazines needed to be bundled (e.g. by zone) only, and did not have to be bagged. Also unfortunately, the mailing service personnel believed them. The result was that the magazines went out promptly. They did not reach you promptly because, as far as we can establish, they sat in a regional bulk mail center for a week or two, waiting to be bagged. In effect, although they were in the hands of the Post Office, they were trickling out to their destinations. We apologize for the delay and concern it caused many of you. We are gradually speeding up the subscription delivery, and expect to reach par with newsstand/dealer delivery over the next few issues.
Subscription Price Increases
This probably isn't the optimal place to mention it, but I thought I'd take a moment to explain the new prices, and in particular the disparity between US and Canadian subscriptions. As of last issue, a twelve-issue subscription to COMPUTE! is $20.00 in the US, $25.00 in US funds in Canada, and for surface delivery elsewhere in the world. You're all aware of the rising costs of production, postage, etc., and the price increase, in part due to the tremendous growth in physical size of COMPUTE! is quite necessary.
As of January 1, our postage cost for sending the magazine to Canada increased by 93%. We found out about this increase when we went to the post office to mail some individual magazines on January 2. We are actively looking for alternative methods of reducing these costs. When we find them, we'll pass the savings along.