RED HARDWARE & SOFTWARE  by Joe Clark
(Village Voice 3/9/93 p53, excerpted from "Machine Dreams")

The latest -- and most improbable -- instantiation of the "Red Hot &" series
of AIDS charity products is Red Hot & Publish, a disk of software add-ons for
desktop-publishing software like Quark XPress and Adobe Photoshop.  You need
the software to begin with; RH&P merely gives the programs new capabilities --
like adapting XPress for video presentation or using Photoshop to play with
"image saturation and color intensity" in photos.  The package also makes you
eligible for discounts ... from Super Mac Technologies.

The idea .. came from openly gay Quark founder Tim Gill, who explains, "I was
just listening to Red Hot & Dance, and I thought, 'Gee, this is really cool. 
There's all this cool music and it's going toward AIDS.' ... "I can do exactly
the same thing.  I can make a disk of programs" to rake in cash for Red Hot
Organization.

"One of the original designers of XPress has AIDS," Gill adds, saying that the
appropriateness of the project became clearer when he considered who his
clients were -- so many of them are "based out in the San Francisco Bay area
that has been hit very, very hard by this.  And look at who my customers are:
They're public organizations, many of them based in New York, nost of whom
have had customers who have been sick or have died" -- not to mention
employees, lovers and, friends.  (In fact, according to press release,
SuperMac is participating "In loving memory of Timothy Ryan Calica,
1963-1991.")  Gill concedes, though, that his company's location in Colorado
puts boycott-observers in a bit of a quandry.  Gill wants to sell "hundreds of
thousands" of copies and even invite arch-rival Aldus Corp. to contribute to a
possible Volume II.  Red Hot & Publish, for Windows or the Mac, is $49 from
800-788-7835.