AAAAUUGH!!! I can't stand it any more. My near-letter-quality program, Bradford, has been available under my company label (Concom Enterprises) since February 1985 at a price never above $39.95, and yet, because I don't have the resources to advertise it in major magazines, everybody is buying other programs that do the same thing for $99 to $180! Well, luckily, I am the sole proprietor of Concom Enterprises, and I wrote Bradford myself, so I can do anything with it that I choose to. And this is what I have chosen to do: Enclosed in this group of files is Bradford, its font files, and almost no instructions. It's still copyrighted and owned by me, but I hereby grant EVERYBODY IN THE WHOLE WORLD permission to use and copy Bradford.com and the accompanying font files. Bradford prints WordStar and ASCII files in near letter quality on Epson or Gemini dot matrix printers using these printers' graphics ability. End result: you get typeset-looking output from a low-end ("El Cheapo") printer. The printers that Bradford can use include the Epson MX (with Graftrax), FX, and RX printers, the IBM/Epson dot matrix printer, and the Star Gemini printers. You might compare Bradford to Fancy Font, Lettrix, and similar programs. Except that you can have Bradford for free. You can use it all you like. In fact, I would like nothing better than to receive letters from 1000 different people, all printed with Bradford. Now here's the deal. In addition to its ability to print in near letter quality with a number of different fonts, Bradford can also fine-tune its printout to your specifications, with a whole slew of "imbedded commands" -- commands that you can insert in your text files to tell Bradford to change fonts, change widths, underline, boldface, change margins, and much much more. But I'm not going to tell you how to use these features. If you like what Bradford does without the instructions -- and I am confident you will -- you will be AMAZED how good it is WITH the instructions. So, if you want the instructions -- a very well-written manual of about 18 single-spaced pages -- you'll have to send me $15. Is that too much to ask? Considering that Bradford has just been selling for $39.95, I think not. So use Bradford all you like, upload it to bulletin boards, mail copies to your friends, and if you can figure out some of its advanced features without any help, more power to you. But if you would like to have full control of your documents through the use of imbedded commands, please send the money. Here's what to send and where to send it: To receive the Bradford manual, please send a check for $15 in U.S. funds, payable to Aaron Contorer, to: Aaron Contorer 1521 Central Avenue Deerfield IL 60015 U.S.A. Don't forget to enclose your address and to state that the check is for a Bradford manual! I'd also like to know what kind of computer and what kind of printer you are using. If, for business purposes, you need to write the check to a company name, make it payable to Concom Enterprises. Again, please understand that I do not want to force anyone to buy the manual who doesn't want to. The program does quite a lot without instructions, and I would LOVE to hear that EVERYBODY who has an Epson or Gemini printer was using Bradford. But I hope that you'll like the program enough to be interested in learning to use its advanced features. I look forward to hearing from many of you from across the country and around the world. ATTENTION BULLETIN BOARD OPERATORS: If you are one of those diligent operators who tries to carefully ensure that no material on their board is copyrighted, please understand: Bradford IS copyrighted, but I grant unlimited permission to copy it, including via bulletin board. I would like to ENCOURAGE you to make Bradford available to as many people as possible. If you have any questions, contact me at the above address or via MCI Mail at address 114-7890. If you really have to, you can find out my phone number at the above address and call me. Thank you, peace on earth, and enjoy your new copy of Bradford. Aaron Contorer President Concom Enterprises 1985 If you would like to buy the Bradford manual for your company but need an invoice before your company will write a check, just print out the following form: ------------ INVOICE Concom Enterprises 1521 Central Avenue Deerfield IL 60015 U.S.A. For one copy of the manual for Bradford, the near letter quality program, please remit a check for $15 (U.S.) to the above address. Terms: full payment in advance. Shipping charges included. ------------ HOW TO USE BRADFORD WITHOUT THE MANUAL: Select the drive that contains Bradford's font files as the default file. Fonts that you are not going to use don't have to be on the drive. Run Bradford by typing 'bradford' and hitting . Type the name of your text file -- for example, LETTER or B:TEMP.TXT -- and hit . If you are using CP/M, type the user number where your text file is located and hit . Type the number of copies you want, from 1 to 99, and hit . Press the letter (A, B, C, or D) representing your type of printer, as explained by Bradford on-screen. Press a number indicating how wide you want the characters to be, in 20ths of an inch. (Standard pica print is 2/20 inch, and you would press 2 for that.) Some printers cannot print odd-numbered widths, and Bradford will round up the number you typed to the next higher even number if it has to. Press a number from 1 to 9 indicating how dark you want Bradford to print your document. 1 is normal, 2 is dark, 3 is very dark, and more than 3 tends to be absurd. Press the number of the font (typeface) that you want to use and press . Try each of the typefaces provided to find out which you like best and what each looks like. If you want your document printed flush left (the normal way), press L. If you want it flush right (the right magins lined up), press R. If you want each line centered, press C. If you want the text justified (spread out so both left and right margins are straight), press J. If you want your document printed with proportional spacing, press Y. If you want each letter allocated the same amount of space, press N. If you want the pages numbered at the bottom, press Y. Otherwise press N. If you want a pause before each page to allow you to print on sheets of paper, press Y. Otherwise press N. If the file you are printing is a WordStar document file, press Y. If it is an ASCII file, press N. If you want top and bottom margins (also known as "page breaks") in your printout, press Y. If you want continuous printing or if your text file already has page breaks in it, press N. Page numbering (see above) will only work if you press Y. If you want left and right margins in your printout, press Y. If you want the printout to fill the whole page, press N. Press RETURN, as the command character requres detailed explanation available only in the Bradford manual. Press Y to print, N to re-answer all the questions, or A to return to the operating system.