Tom Boothby
2202 SE Tenino
Portland, OR   97202
(503) 238 1433

July 14, 1992

NEEDLE.TIL  is the name of my newest tile set and it is one that 
makes me proud.

I get  my inspiration at the library browsing through trade mark 
books, heraldry books, needle work books and other graphic 
oriented books.

My earliest efforts were somewhat ham-handed as there is not the 
slightest trace of artistic ability anywhere in my body (that I 
know of).

Nels Anderson and his wonderful Tile Maker program has made it 
possible for me to render tiles that I am proud to stand up and 
claim and which keep me nose to keyboard hour after pleasurable 
hour.

I have built about 15 separate sets and own about 40 more that I 
have collected.  I play all the tile sets and have won about 10% 
of the nearly 700 games that I have played.

One of the tasks that I set for myself was to build tile sets 
close to the original concept; that is, three suits, 4 more, and 
two sets of 4 wild cards.

The game is difficult enough that I believe it unfair to further 
confound you by making the tiles difficult to distinguish one from 
the other.

Another thing that I have done to enhance the play is to round 
the corners of all the tiles.  This seems to me to make them 
stand away from each other on all sides, thus making play less 
difficult.  (Do you ever wish you could peek under a tile to find 
one you need?)

(Parenthetically, I have built one set which rates an "X".  I do 
not expect to put it into general circulation but would trade for  
one that also is not in circulation.  It was simply an experiment 
and I am satisfied with the results. Please do not ask if you 
are easily shocked.)

The new button on the tile maker that lets you change all the 
pixels of one color to any other color has been a real godsend to 
me.  I labored long and hard over my first few tile sets but I 
was convinced soon to REGISTER my set and get the latest up-date.
None of the other software that I own has given so many hours of
satisfaction for such a small price.

Maybe some day we will be able to vary the intenstity of the 
colors of each pixel.  Think what you could do with IBM's 
fantastic 16 color pallette.