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^CBy Daniel Tobias

   Issue 14 of BIG BLUE DISK proves that we can indeed make it past the 
"unlucky" number 13 unscathed.  I've gotten through issue 13, as well as the 
black cat which crossed my path last night, and the several mirrors I've 
broken over the last seven years, without a problem, once again disproving 
those old superstitions.  (Knock on wood!)  Anyway, it's time to go on with 
another issue. 

   They say there are two sides to every argument.  There are also two sides 
to every floppy disk, though with the PC's double-sided drives you're never 
made aware of this fact through the necessity of flipping over the disk, as 
our Apple and Commodore customers do.  However, there is another sense in which
this issue has two sides; it has a distinct split personality.


^C^1HI-HO, HI-HO, IT'S OFF TO WORK WE GO

   On the one hand, this issue promotes the use of your PC for serious 
business.  The special programs (yep, there's more than one of them this time) 
are a set of shareware accounting programs that do a company's general ledger, 
accounts payable and receivable, and payroll.  If you would like your personal 
finances in as much order as your company's, check out Garry Delong's 
"Friendly Checkbook," a program for balancing checkbooks.  These sorts of 
things are probably what you bought your computer for, or at least what you 
told the I.R.S.  It's not a toy; it's a productivity-enhancement tool. 


^C^1FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL BIG BLUE DISK

   But the other half of the issue takes a decidedly opposite approach.  The 
two "Fun and Games" features, "Dungeon of Death" and "Cuckoo's Nest," show you 
that your PC is not just a computer; it's an adventure!  Explore a dungeon and 
come back with great treasure, if you survive the experience.  Discover the 
secrets of an old mansion.  Here's where you have some fun with your PC, 
instead of just running boring stuff like accounting programs all the time. 

   Anyhow, whether you're in it for business or pleasure, or mixing the two, 
get on with the issue; you'll find something up your alley.

   Before we start, let me get one more thing off my chest; I'm not related to 
Andrew Tobias, that guy who writes all that stuff about managing money.  (I've 
kept my checkbook balanced [well, nearly] even without the help of this month's
program, but that's about it.)  The only published works I know of by relatives 
bearing the Tobias name are a somewhat abstruse statistics textbook co-authored
by my father, and a series of mail-order knitting catalogs by my mother.  Some 
other distinguished people I ^1am^0 related to (even though they don't have the
Tobias name) include award-winning mathematician Charles Fefferman (my mother's
first cousin), and U.S. Senator Warren Rudman of Gramm-Rudman fame.  I've 
always known I was related to him, but was never sure quite how; the Family 
Tree program on BIG BLUE DISK #10 finally allowed me to discover that he's my 
father's mother's father's brother's son's son.  But don't blame me; I didn't 
vote for him. 
