                           January 20, 1993                 use Page Down and
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Program notes and some vague instructions:                      see more
Release notes are at the bottom of this file
Also, if the program will not run, see the bottom of this file.

Box office accounting and ticket selling is a specialized branch of the
accounting field.  Most of the software that will do it has been priced
in the $30,000 to $100,000 range.  There is really no reason for these
high prices other than that there is a market that will support those
prices.  The smaller theatres have simply been out of luck, or at the
mercy of big computerized operations.
 
Center Stage Software was started with the idea that there were more
theatres that could afford inexpensive software than could afford expensive
software.  Or, to put it another way, "God loves the poor people.  That's
why he made so many of them."  Our program is only $895 and has been
doing quite well - much to the alarm of the bigger companies.
 
Still, there are some performing arts organizations that cannot afford that
amount.  They may have a computer but they are unable to get it to do very
much for them.  What they need is some free software.
 
We also have some competition in our price range.  We look at them
and are surprised to find they are charging the same price as we are for a
program that has approximately the same functionality of our demonstration
disk.
 
So in the interests of benefitting performing arts organizations and in
promoting competition, we have released this program.  Use it, make copies,
and pass it along to your friends.
 
This program will:
        sell tickets
        print tickets (if you need inexpensive ticket stock, call us)
        do accounting:
                by Show
                by Performance
                by Day
                by Customer
        collect names and addresses for mailing lists
        print mailing labels
        create text files to send to a word processor
        remove duplicate names
        print a zip code report
 
System Requirements:
   XT, 286, 386, 486, 586 computer with about 10 MB free space on the
   hard disk, a printer, and a human who likes computers
 
 
And now:  The vague instructions (which no one reads anyway):

1. Go to the accounting section.  Enter a new show.

2. Enter performance dates, times, and prices for the show.  Also, tell the
      computer whether you want to print tickets for each performance.

3. Sell a couple tickets for the show you just added.

4. Edit the sales you did and get a few reports.  That's all there is to it!
 
The way the system works is to record each transaction along with the
appropriate information as a sale in the Mainsale file.  The Mainsale
becomes a list of entries - similar to a shoebox filled with notecards.
 
When you get reports, or print mailing labels, the computer goes through
each sale or record, checks to see if it should include it, and then prints
the information.  That's all it does.
 
Information (like the title of the show, prices, whether to print tickets)
comes from other files when you enter the show information.
 
Try it.  If you are lost, make a guess.  If in doubt, press Esc.
You really can't do any harm.
 
If you need ticket stock, give us a call.  We sell it for $20.00 per
thousand plus tax and shipping.
 
And finally, the sales pitch:
Are we worried that people will use this program and never buy anything
from us?  Yes, but just a little.  Once people actually start using their
computers, they will discover how useful a computer can be.  Our regular
programs are all multi-user (you can have several people selling tickets),
all have seating charts on the screen, all collect publicity, all print
labels for ticket and mail envelopes while printing the tickets, and have
more season ticket holder functions.  The prices are:
  $895.00  Tixsales basic multi-user system
  $995.00  release 4 - looks like a Windows program, acts like a Macintosh,
           and is mouse driven (though you don't need one)
$2,500.00  for larger venues (over 4,000 seats)  It has things like on-line
           credit card verification and the ability to quickly handle large
           (up to 100,000 seats) charts.
 
        For more information:
                Center Stage Software
                209 John Street,  Monterey, California  93940
 
                408-649-5561 voice        408-649-0868 fax
                Compuserve: 70641,2433
 

UPDATING:
    If you have been using one of the previous versions of this program,
    DO NOT overwrite any of your database files.  The only file you need
    is the one called "TIXSALES.EXE"  If you overwrite your database files,
    you will lose everything in them since they will be replaced with empty
    files.  Your only recourse will be to restore from your backups.



August 17, 1993     Modifications for version 1.1:
    Put in "closest match search" in the mailing list section
    Put more information in the README.TXT file
    Changed some of the colors
    Put a few environmental settings on the initial screen

November 2, 1993    Modifications for version 1.2
    You can now enter your own mailing charge.  If you tell the computer
        that the tickets will be mailed, it will include mailing charge
        when it calculates how much money the customer owes.  As before,
        the amount the customer actually pays is left up to you.  You
        can even enter a negative amount (in case they are getting a refund).
    When looking up a name while selling a ticket, there is now a
        "closest match" option if the exact spelling is not found.
    When entering a new show, the first field is now the abbreviation
        field to force an entry.  If this was not filled in, it could have
        led to problems with the sales records being unidentified.
    When entering a performance of a show, the "Assign seats" has been
        changed to "Print seat location on the tickets."  This was done to
        clear up some confusion as to what the function actually did.
    When printing labels from "Edit the Sale" you can print a ticket envelope
        label, a mailing label, or both.

IF YOU CANNOT GET THE PROGRAM TO RUN:  it's not your fault, so relax.
You did the right thing by reading this.

This program is distributed in a self-extracting zip file.  This file should
expand to seven files:
        TIXSALES.EXE
        MASTER.DBF
        MASTER.DBT
        MAINSALE.DBF
        SHOWS.DBF
        CUSTOMER.DBF
        README.TXT

After you start the program, several index files will be created.  They have
the extension .NTX.  They are re-built each time the program is started.

If you are getting something like "OPEN ERROR, MAINSALE.DBF" it means your
computer cannot open a file.  Either the file does not exist, or you need to
increase the the number of file handles in your CONFIG.SYS by saying FILES=20

If you do not have all of these files, get another copy.  Although copies of
this program are scattered all over the place, the most reliable source of
the latest version is the SHOWBIZ forum on Compuserve.

Any of these files can be damaged and the program will not run correctly.
If you are getting really strange things, this is probably why.

If you are getting a message "NOT ENOUGH MEMORY," there is a cure.  This is
caused by a bug in the DOS 6 memory manager when used by Windows.  What you
need to do is either boot from a "clean" floppy or rename your CONGIG.SYS
(so your computer will not read it) and re-boot.  The program will run
fine as long as you have at least 640K memory installed.  All our programs
run fine under Windows too - once you get the memory management set up
properly (it's one of those things they don't tell you about).



