Hi folks,

Olivier Thizy asked about Guide 8's availability and how to upgrade
to it... for those wanting the gory details as to what I'm planning to
do in this version, I've updated my page on this subject:

http://www.projectpluto.com

The two Big Unresolved Problems I have to figure out are compressing
all those deep-sky images, and handling two CDs in a user-friendly manner
that won't provoke a lot of angry/frustrated people calling for support.
Once I get solutions I'm happy with, and once the beta testers agree
I've gotten things right and a slew of jobs are handled (new manual,
translations, getting disks made), I'll send out upgrade notices
via e-mail. Once I've gotten replies from that, I'll get notices out
via postal mail. The upgrade, by the way, will run $30.

Ned, about dealing with a hard-drive-ized version of Guide: I think
you want to change that line in STARTUP.MAR to read something like this:

18 drive c:\guide-cd

The spacing is important. However, there may be still more trouble
lurking out there, because you mention that the program _locked up_.
It should not do anything so uncivilized; it ought to be giving you a
polite error message such as "can't find data in directory
thus-and-such". Please keep me posted if there are indeed further
troubles.

Also: I've gotten some inquiries about use of Guide with the Sky
Tracker setup (a motorized scope system developed by Victor McKeighan,
the gent behind the Sky Commander, and currently in use on some of
Rick Singmaster's scopes.) The problem is that aside from Victor,
I know of only two people who have tried to do this. If anyone else
has done so, you should be warned that you are essentially beta-testing
that code, and I would very much like to hear about your results,
positive or negative.

-- Bill