First of all thanks to Harry Goldman for creating the TCBA News and to those who purchased some form of the TCBA Index. For those who didn't, (you know who you are), reading the following should be punishment enough. This is a little story of how the TCBA News Index came about: The Problem After 14 years of subscribing to the TCBA News, I wanted a convienient way of searching for specific topics without rereading the whole series- not that I mind rereading old issues! The Inquiry I wrote Harry Goldman about the availability of an index and my proposal to write an index as a computer text file to facilitate electronic word searches. Harry informed me that Jim Roddy had produced an Index thru Vol 10 Issue 1 but he was no longer active in the TCBA. Others have inquired but none took up the task. The Goal Harry provided me a printed copy of Jim Roddy's TCBA Index. Being an avid reader, sometimes a tidbit info contributor, but never an original article author, I felt this is something I could do for myself, Harry Goldman, and the TCBA membership. The Baseline I scanned the printed copy and used an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program to regenerate the original Index as a text (ASCII) file. The quality of the original was average so there was alot of manual editing. Once I had a clean copy on disk, I reformatted the columns to remove wasteful spaces and thus become more memory efficient. The Updates I entered new index data at my son's little league baseball games on a Psion Series3 palmtop computer in Spring 95. The new entries were edited on an Amiga computer and PC compatable. Then merged to the baseline file, alphabetized by subject and saved as a file. I then resorted the file by volume-issue page for a table-of-contents appearance and saved it as another file. Both sorts were split into two half size files for smaller text editors that cannot handle files greater than 45K. Finally both files were saved as MS Word 6.0 format with a header and page numbers. These files were laser printed with New Courier 10 Point Font for a precise column look. The First Release (1995) The Index was now complete to Vol 14 Issue 2 in late spring of 95. I sent a printed copy to Harry Goldman for review of errors. He returned a short list and gave general approval of the format. Asking if I wanted to release it to the TCBA members, I started to determine pricing for disks, paper copying, envelopes, postage, etc. Summer came and other work piled up so I lost interest. Harry referred two people who contacted me for Index related questions, both of which I handled. The Second Release (1996) Again in the Spring using the Psion Series3 at the ballgames, I updated the Index thru Vol 15 Issue 2. Then repeated the efforts described in the Updates section above and mailed a printed copy to Harry Goldman. This time I wrote an advertisement/order form to appear as an insert in the TCBA News and this readme file to accompany the Index. The advertisement was included in TCBA News Vol 15 Issue 4. I updated the Index to include Vol 15 Issues 3 and 4. I started filling orders to the membership during the first days of October 1996. My Philosophy I wanted the TCBA News Index to be distributed mainly by computer disk as alot of paper would be used on something that needs quarterly updates. The word search capability of word processors or utility programs are also a big plus. I offered to have the volume-issue page sort printed as an addendum or bonus in the TCBA News as the current data remains static. Entries for each new issue are tacked on the end of the file, not mixed in with the old entries as in the alphabetical subject sort. I don't think this will happen as there are too many pages. I don't have a homepage yet so I haven't posted the files electronically. I hope to eventually post file updates on the internet as part of a homepage in the future. Stay tuned. **(See New Releases below)** As far as distribution goes, I don't mind TCBA members copying the Index (disk or printed) as a favor for other TCBA members in local groups as long as there isn't any profit being made. I do not want the Index bundled with any other software and/or sold for profit. I am trying to distribute the Index as inexpensively as possible. The Future I hope to maintain updates to the index as long as the TCBA News continues (DONE!). I welcome comments or errors brought to my attention and will try to incorporate them (fixes not errors) in future releases. Obviously as the postage or amount of pages goes up, the cost will follow. Again, computer disks are the cheaper option! Disclaimer (the fine print) There are no executable programs on the disk, only plain text (ASCII) files and MS Word 6.0 files which have the same data as the text files. I cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the data. Use the Index as a guide to explore and more fully appreciate the TCBA News. **New Releases - Latest Due to the increasing number of index pages and postage rates, the order form reflects new pricing. The good news for web users follows.. The latest TCBA Index is available on Steve Cole's Internet Homepage at this address http://home1.gte.net/res07cmo/hv/Tcba/tcba.htm Send a self addressed stamped envelope (SASE) for TCBA Index information and the latest pricing to the address below. Thanks again. My address is Robert Wroblewski 32 Barton Ave Dracut, MA 01826-2204 USA My email address is bwroblewski@yahoo.com For back issues, article reprints, or new subcriptions of the TCBA NEWS. The address is Tesla Coil Builders Association Harry Goldman 3 Amy Lane Queensbury, NY 12804 USA