the display, I leaned back in the chair with my   
   hand on my chin, and asked myself, "How can I make this program better?"   
      
   If I remember my Sherlock Holmes correctly, the best thing to do when   
   considering a course for the future is to seek counsel from the past, so I   
   guess it would be best to start where "The Envelope Addressor" came from...   
      
   I was sitting at my desk one Sunday afternoon going over the bills for   
   another month.  My previous successful program, "Check It Out" was already   
   loaded into my Commodore 128 (in 64 mode) and printing checks as I called   
   them off.  I won the battle with the pain of writing dozens of checks a   
   month by hand, but the task of putting the return and recipient address   
   onto the envelopes still remained.  The selfish reason for coding "Check It   
   Out" was my blasted carpel tunnel that set in over the years.  It was   
   getting too painful (and sometimes numbing) for me to wrestle with pen and   
   ink over checks.  With "Check It Out" the problem solved, but new   
   revelation revealed only half the problem was solved.  Now I have to deal   
   with the same recurring pain and numbness addressing envelopes as I did   
   when I was writing checks.  I looked at my (then) Star NX10-C printer with   
   a freshly drafted check sitting in the rollers and said to myself, "If I   
   did it before, I can do it again." So, that very evening I started drafting   
   the source code for what, in the next three months would become, "The   
   Envelope Addressor" v1.   
      
   The program ran similar to "Check It Out" in format; the program would   
   guide you around your envelope allowing the user to put in the "To" and   
   "From" addresses, but as a bonus, the program saved your input data to a   
   small, compact, one block sequential file before going to print.  My wrists   
   were saved and my pain almost a memory.  On a whim, I contacted Dave   
   Moorman of the "Loadstar" Commodore disk/magazine fame and inquired him in   
   an email if he would be interested in seeing the work.  He politely agreed   
   so I sent him a image copy of the work, and I waited.   
      
   Two or three weeks went by before I nervously attempted to contact Mr.   
   Moorman on how my program fared under his scrutiny.  The next day he sent   
   me a .d81 image copy of the latest issue of "Loadstar" with "The Envelope   
   Addressor" neatly tucked into the digital pages along with his personal   
   comments about the work, but not comments on the program, per se, but on   
   its structuring.  Mr.  Moorman stated that it has been a long time since he   
   has seen a Commodore BASIC program so well uniformed that "The Envelope   
   Addressor" was worth the "stopping of the presses" as it were, and fitting   
   the program into the latest issue of "Loadstar".  He went on to say that   
   usually he encrypts all the programs published in "Loadstar" to deter   
   piracy, but "The Envelope Addressor" was such a well-structured program   
   that he left its code unencrypted in the final print of the disk-zene so   
   future contributors to "Loadstar" could see how a Commodore BASIC program   
   should be presented.  Score!  I think....   
      
   Then came the acid test, or as I liked to think of it as the "jack" acid   
   test, and that test came from the noble, wise, and venerable men and women   
   of the Commodore Users Group of Kansas City (Missouri).  When they viewed   
   the program from the disk they got from "Loadstar," they had some   
   suggestions.  They didn't want to change the code; they had some ideas to   
   make the program more practical.  A few examples were:  Make the program   
   print on smaller envelopes, like the smaller size #7 style.  Get rid of the   
   "Attn:" format.  That's good for businesses but most Commodore users   
   nowadays are more home users; they won't need that feature.  What about   
   window style?  Can you code a feature for those style of envelopes?  Our   
   resident United States post office worker suggested that, since Mexico is   
   starting to adopt US Postal styles like zip codes, a "Country Designation"   
   feature should be printable on the face of the envelope.  Despite the ego   
   boost given to me by the editor and publisher of "Loadstar," my wise   
   Commodore comrades pulled my head out of the stratosphere and placed me   
   again on good ol' terra firma.  At first I was hurt by their criticism, but   
   the more I used "The Envelope Addressor," the more I knew they were right   
   -- again.  So, two years later, on another Sunday evening after paying   
   bills using "Check It Out" and "The Envelope Addressor," I listed the   
   program text to view on my Commodore 1902 monitor screen and started   
   tinkering around with the source code.   
      
   When I started working again with the code as a programmer instead of being   
   an end user, I saw my Commodore friends were being too nice to me; there   
   were a lot of things I could do to make "The Envelope Addressor" and much   
   more handy and viable tool in the hands of the "every month" accounts   
   payable person.  Taking their suggestions, and a few of my own that I   
   thought of, in the span of another two months I all but completely recoded   
   "The Envelope Addressor" into a Frankenstein model of its former self.  I   
   added an extended main menu; I recoded the directory to allow the user to   
   see which file was the "From" address (F/) and which was the "To" address   
   (T/); I expanded the print lines to include #10 size envelopes, #7 size   
   envelopes, single window envelopes, and double window (pay check style)   
   envelopes; I coded more sub menus with easy "back out to the main menu"   
   access in case a user got lost in the maze of menus and sub menus; I did a   
   lot of upgrading to it, so much so that "The Envelope Addressor" was no   
   longer the same; similar, yes, but not the same.   
      
   A remodelled program needed a remodelled name.  Nothing totally off the   
   beaten path, but something that said, "I'm back and I'm buffed!  Fear me!"   
   Throughout the household of Roach, the program was jokingly called "TEA",   
   so the family came up with "Tea For Two", which I translated into   
   Commodore-eze as "TEA 4 2," which later transcribed into its final version,   
   "TEA v4.2." With that little conundrum settled, and the recoded program in   
   place, it was a matter of redrawing an opening graphics boot screen,   
   putting it in place on the master disk, and voila!  Another Commodore   
   masterpiece wrapped in the bacon of BASIC.  Oh, before I forget, the   
   graphics screen I drew was of two steaming cups of hot tea in heart and   
   diamond studded tea cups, which really looked more like coffee mugs.  I   
   used the "Screen Gem" med-res graphics illustration program written by   
   Billy Godfrey many moons ago when the Ivory BBS package was the big thing   
   in the United States.   
      
   One thing about both "TEA" and "TEA v4.2" was that they were the only   
   programs I coded that I actually wrote documentation for.  It was my first   
   attempt to write "on screen" text, so I used hundreds of Print Statements,   
   followed every several lines by a short subroutine which allowed the reader   
   to "flip" back and forth among "pages." Two pages of handwritten text   
   became twenty pages of "on screen" text.  Since direct BASIC Print   
   Statements do not word wrap, I had to physically space out the words so   
   that the text would look uniformed on screen.  That was tedious, long,   
   boring, and mind numbing, but it did make for a great visual presentation   
   on the Commodore monitor.   
      
   So, what happened to "TEA v4.2?" Lightning struck twice as I sent the new   
   version of "The Envelope Addressor" to Mr.  Moorman of "Loadstar" and he   
   published it in a disk/magazine as well.  "Loadstar" headquarters was hit   
   by a tornado not too far from the close of the first decade of the 21st   
   century and never recovered.  Another great Commodore publication hit the   
   dirt.   
      
   With all that out in the open we go back to the question that started this   
   article:  What can be done to make "TEA v4.2" a better program?  With   
   magazines like "Commodore Free" in publication and Commodore users coming   
   together from all over the globe under its banner, I think making "TEA   
   v4.2" more universally usable.  I know in its present form, the program can   
   be used in the United States and Canada, but   
      
   --- MBSE BBS v1.0.4 (GNU/Linux-i386)   
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