-=> Quoting Tom Walker to Curtis Johnson <=-

 CJ>  TW> That could have been a News Stand special Issue. I have seen that
 CJ>  TW> from Other Magazines.
 
 CJ>  Not a special issue, been the case with each issue of _Computer
 CJ> Shopper_ I've seen over the past year or two.

 TW> That is very interesting. I have been subscribing to Computer Shopper
 TW> since  the middle 80's when it was so big and thick that you could
 TW> hardly pick it  up and Had tons of articles and Ads for everything
 TW> imangiable for the  computers of the day. I have Never recieved an
 TW> Issue through the mail with a CD included. I did get  several for
 TW> Renewing my subscription though.   

	It *is* interesting.
	My understanding (I can't recollect from where) is that the
CD-ROM on the newstand copies contains the ads.  This is a strategy
that just might work with an audience that's already primed to look
through the ads, and that would be the intended audience--at least
the ones picking it up at the newsstand.
	Since the magazine was printed *mostly* on pulp instead of
"slick" paper, the economics of sending it through the mail may mean
that the savings of putting the ads on a CD might not be enough to
offset the costs of the CD, at least not yet.
	But there is a newsstand consideration that may have made
the CD-ROM for the ads imperative.  As you mentioned, it was *was*
getting incredibly thick.  But that thickness was probably cutting
into how many copies a newsstand would be willing to stock, since
the space for one copy of a thick _Computer Shopper_ could be 
substituted for four or six copies of another magazine for four or
six times the return on the same space.

  
	  


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