SHOWNEWS and LOADNEWS 3.11--

WHAT THESE PROGRAMS ARE:
     LOADNEWS--This program loads Usenet articles onto a disk on a
     single user system from a downloaded file for later reading.
     SHOWNEWS--This program allows a user to read the news articles
     which have been loaded with LOADNEWS.

WHY RUN THESE PROGRAMS:
          As Internet Service Providers (ISP) become more and more
     overloaded with subscribers, reading Usenet news on their
     systems directly can become a slow tedious process.  MODEMs can
     be unavailable at heavily used sites for extended periods.  News
     servers can operate slowly while trying to handle heavy work 
     loads, resulting in longer costly on-line time for everyone on
     the system.  Reading through many articles on-line can keep a
     phone busy for hours at a time, and if getting to the ISP is a
     toll call, high phone bills may be the result.  However, if an
     ISP user could download a group of articles, and read them off-
     line, some of the problems dealing with the busy ISP might be
          avoided.  The programs in this package can manage a
     collection of downloaded Usenet news group articles.  Each
     downloaded file must contain a collection of articles which are
     to be loaded into a single news group (all of the articles in
     the file will be loaded into one single news group, regardless
     of their origin).  Once the articles have been loaded with
     LOADNEWS, they can then be read with SHOWNEWS.  Since LOADNEWS
     and SHOWNEWS have been designed to run on a single user system
     off-line, the full speed of the single user system is always
     available, and the phone will not be busy while articles are
     being read.  Furthermore, the directory tree structure employed
     in this package allows for group names which include characters
     which are not allowed in directory or file names in the MS-DOS
     and PC-DOS operating systems; therefore, the group comp.std.c++
     (and others) can be managed as easily as any other group.

 DISCLAIMER:
     Try these programs at your own risk!  Considerable effort
     has been put into writing these programs to keep them from
     wildly rampaging through your computer, deleting and damaging
     everything reachable, but sometimes things go wrong anyway.
     The original author (Ralph W. Reid) may not be held responsible
     for any damages or losses, including but not limited to lost or
     damaged files, hardware failures, any type of physical
     disability or impairment which might be associated with computer
     operation, marital or other personal problems, or any other
     problems or situations which might be the result of operating
     this or any other computer software.  RUN THESE COMPUTER
     PROGRAMS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

REGISTRATION FOR CONTINUED OPERATION:
          This package is not free.  If you find this package useful
     beyond a period of 15 days, you MUST register this package in
     accordance with the guidelines described in the ORDER.DOC file.
     When you register this software, you will receive the latest
     complete version of this package, which will include more news
     file management tools than the shareware version, as well as a
     printable manual for that version.  See the ORDER.DOC file for 
     more details.  To print a copy of the ORDER.DOC file, enter the
     following command at the system prompt:

     COPY ORDER.DOC LPT1:

     assuming your printer is connected to the LPT1 printer port.
     If your printer is not connected to LPT1:, substitute PRN,
     LPT2:, LPT3:, COM1:, or COM2: to get the file to print with your
     system configuration.

FILE LIST:
     INSTALL.EXE--software installation utility
     LOADNEWS.EXE--news files loader
     MANUAL.DOC--printable documentation file
     ORDER.DOC--printable registration/order form
     README.TXT--you're looking at it
     SHOWNEWS.EXE--news file reader

REQUIRED:
     8088, 8086, 80286, 80386, 80486, Pentium, or P6 processor
     640 KB RAM (no extended or expanded memory needed!)
     approximately 200 KB disk space for software
     several MB of hard disk space for news and temporary files
     MS-DOS or PC-DOS 3.00 or later
     an Internet account or other source of news group files

RECOMMENDATIONS:
     1.  Install programs and news files on one or more hard drives.
     2.  Many news files are 1-3 KB, so small cluster sizes can save
     a lot of disk space (run CHKDSK on a partition to determine the
     cluster size; 1024 or 2048 are the best sizes for small news
     files; select news root disk partitions carefully).

IMPORTANT NOTES:
     This software does require some installation.  Read the
     introduction (section 1.0) and installation instructions (section
     2.0) and all of their subsections completely before installing and 
     running the software in this package.  The documentation file 
     can be viewed on a screen or printed on a dot matrix, laser, ink 
     jet, or bubble jet printer by executing the following command:

     COPY MANUAL.DOC LPT1:

     assuming your printer is connected to LPT1.  Change LPT1: to
     PRN, LPT2:, LPT3:, COM1:, or COM2: as your system set up
     requires.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
     Comments or requests for further information should be
     sent to:

     Ralph W. Reid
     125 Parmac
     #32
     Chico, CA  95926

