Fred 41

Issue 41

Magazine

BM                         Editorial

Happy  New  Year  everyone,  and  have a great 1994. We've got a
review  of 1993 later on, just to add a little bit of nostalgia,
and  a HUGE music section. And that's about it as far as special
features  goes, I'm afraid! There is all the usual bumph though,
so don't worry.

As most of you'll already be aware, Hogmany in Scotland is a big
event.   For  the  off-licences,  at any rate. And supermarkets.
You would not believe how many loaves of bread we got through at
Wm  Low. Hundreds. They made me get up at 5:45 in the morning on
Hogmany.  Can  you  believe   that?  I  was  just  about dead by
midnight!

Luckily I survived, of course, and in fact managed to keep going
until  6:00  am on 1st Jan, so I got through the magic 24 hours,
which is a first for me. It may not be to some people, but to me
it meant a lot. Yes. It was kind of depressing, to be honest. If
only I could have made it until daylight, THEN I would have felt
bad.
BM                         Editorial

Saturday didn't happen though. I got up for five hours then went
back  to  bed, and an instant later - boom! It was Sunday! And I
was  still  feeling  less-than-healthy.  Here's  a  tip  for our
younger readers - when, in future, you become inebriated (drunk)
to  the  point of virtual unconsciousness, do NOT go down to the
fridge  for  some more lager. Even if it is free (thanks, by the
way  Colin.  Nice  lager. Cheers).

In  fact, kids, don't even start drinking. It really isn't worth
it.  It  causes  all  sorts  of  nasty things to happen. At this
point,  I  shall  emphasize  that  nothing humiliating or at all
embarrassing  happened  to me over New Year. Nothing whatsoever.
Just  make sure that you're aware of that fact. And don't listen
to  Colin  if he ever claims otherwise, because he's lying. He's
making it up. He is.

My resolution for the year is this: not to be stranded up in the
city centre for 2 hours without any taxi phone numbers. It isn't
fun, and it is cold. Very cold. And boring. And COLD!
BM                         Editorial

Another piece of advice is don't take out too much money because
it's very likely that you are in fact going to spend it all. The
worst  part  is  that  you won't even know what you spent it on.
I'll bet taxis probably use up fair chunks (Aha! That's where it
all went!).

Apart  from all these things, it was a good night. A good laugh.
I could give details, but I don't think Colin'd like me devoting
an entire issue to such frivolous things.

I  believe  there  are some nice new software items coming up in
the  not too distant future (Gah! What a cliche!) but I'll leave
them  for  Colin  to  announce.  Lemmings has been delayed until
June, due to last minute recolouring of the creatures' eyes.

Only joking. Ha ha ha.

I'll  leave  this  editorial now. Let's face it, it wasn't going
much further anyway. Again, have a great 1994.           - BRIAN
CM                      CM? Who's that?

Greetings for the new year! Yes, I'll take the brief mention I'm
permitted  to  wish you all a very happy new year. Here's hoping
that  we  see even more great products like SAMPaint, Driver and
Lemmings!

If  you  ordered  one  of the packs which included the mouse and
haven't  received  it by now, fear not! As we've always said, we
can't  guarantee the delivery of hardware due to the vast number
of  people  that  are  involved  in  supplying  all the bits and
delivering  the  hardware. However, you should receive something
during January.

At  the  time  of  writing, Lemmings hasn't been shipped out but
provided Psygnosis like the version we're showing them, in a few
days it should be out, probably by the time you read this. Phone
to  check. I'd like to thank the people who provided suggestions
and  beta-  tested  SAMPaint.  Unfortunately,  the only people's
names  I  wrote  down  were  Andy  Jones,  Bill Laurie and Carol
Brooksbank.
CM                      Typical Scot eh?

In  true  Colin  Macdonald  tradition,  I  was too lazy / busy /
forgetful  /  nasty  / mean to send out any Christmas cards this
year. I mean, what a silly time of year to expect me to send out
cards - when it's the busiest month in the computer business!!

Anyway,  by  way of small apology and thanks, I'd like to credit
the people that sent me one by mentioning them here :

Chris Dodd             Norma Wrangham          Tim Wilkins
PDC Copyprint          Alan Laws               Stefan Drissen
Phil Glover            SDL                     Terry Filby
Bob, Jenny, Rose and Anne-Marie from FORMAT    DisCopy Labs
Craig Turberfield      Stuart Burton & family  Nigel Kettlewell
The ZAT Crew           Polly Shepherd          Calvin Allett
Derek & Maureen Morgan

Upon  meeting  Brian  in a pub late on Christmas Eve, I was told
that Ian Slavin had sent me one via him, but I've never received
it....!
CM                      Wonderful sales

Revelation  and FRED can announced almost record sales of Driver
and SAMPaint respectively. Both utilities caught the eye of many
a  SAM  owner  and it looks like they're both destined to become
very popular indeed throughout '94 and beyond.

Revelation  have  just  put  the finishing touches to "Legend Of
Eshan"  -  a MASSIVE Role Playing Game (RPG) which is due out in
early  February.  Programmed  by John "SAMDice" Eyre it features
over thirty two thousand (yes - 32,000!) locations - each with a
MODE  4  screen!  We  hope to have screenshots for next month as
well  as  more  details  on  it.  Expected  price is £14.95 with
discounts  to FRED and FORMAT subscribers. NB : This game is not
available through FRED at this time.

Also  planned  for  release  in  early  '94  are "Onslaught" - a
Gauntlet style shoot-em-up; "Ore Warz II" - a strategy game; and
"WaterWorks  2"  -  follow-up to the superb original. Revelation
also  have  a  few  extra surprises planned with a licence and a
much awaited utility.....stay tuned!
CM                           TTFN

Well,  I'm afraid that's my scribblings drawing to a close - I'm
being  bullied  by  Brian to get something finished and the fact
that  we  gave the Dundee pubs and Scottish whiskey distilleries
one  of  the  best  Christmas  sales of their life has lead to a
four-day  hangover  -  which  isn't  bad  considering  it  was a
fourteen day drinking session.....

Just  before  Christmas,  FRED  had it's staff night out - Brian
accidentally met me in a night club.

Then  the  FRED  office threw a party on New Years Eve - half of
Monifieth  turned  up  and  I  THINK  I remember Brian stumbling
around  for  a while. There's actually quite a funny story about
Brian  that  day,  but perhaps he wouldn't appreciate me telling
it...  When  most  of  the revellers disappeared late on January
2nd,  the  rest  of  us had a major clean-up operation. And then
yes,  you guessed it, we celebrated having cleaned up the house!
Did  I  ever  tell you I was best-friends with Betty Ford? Enjoy
the rest of issue - and don't phone too early in the mornings!!
BM                   Brian's Review of 1993










                   Hmm, not bad. 7 out of 10.









BM                  The Question Is How Fast

It's  a Superchunk song, okay? And I used it for no other reason
that it's a good track.

Ah,  I'd forgotten about the Christmas FRED night out until that
little  reminder.  It was a pretty decent night out in fact, and
I'm  sure  something  similar will happen next year as well (and
most of the weeks in between if '93 was anything to go by!). And
Colin  was  lying  -  absolutely  nothing  untoward  took  place
involving  my  good  self  at  approx.  5:30  am on January 1st.
Nothing. No funny stories or anything like that. RIGHT!?

Apologies  to  Ian  Slavin  for not passing on Colin's Christmas
card  on time. Ahem, oops! Thanks for mine by the way, Ian. That
of course did arrive on time, possibly because it wasn't left up
to  some  halfwit  to pass it on. Unlike Colin's one, which will
get there eventually, I promise. How about I keep it for another
11  months  and  save  you  the hassle for next Christmas?

How Colin got the house clean again, I'll never know........
BM                       Disc Contents

Without   wasting   any   more   time  analysing  the  New  Year
festivities, I'll begin taking you through the disc.

SCREENS  this  month  is  a  completely Pauli Lindgren dominated
affair.  He  even  provided  his  own  impressive screen viewing
program.  Thanks  for  that  slideshow  viewer, but I think it's
maybe   a   little   too   extravagant; most people don't really
need  musical accompaniment to their screen-viewing, and FRED is
very  rarely  in  a  position where we've got squillions of free
tracks  and  memory  in  an  issue. To be honest, it wasn't easy
fitting   it  on  this  issue  but  I  felt  you  deserved  some
recognition for it is a fine viewer.

METEOR  MANIA  is,  apart  from the main menu, the first of this
month's  Matt  Round  sessions (the other being OMAHF which I'll
get to later). It's a game, done on Gamesmaster, and like Matt's
other games it really is incredible! It would be a piece of cake
to convince people it was done in assembly rather than on a game
creation  package.  Full  instructions  upon  loading.
BM                       Disc Contents

JETPAC  is the second of our games this month and was written by
David  Lewis.  Based  on the old Speccy classic (or should I say
"blatantly copied"), this is another fine example of what can be
done  on  Gamesmaster.  For those too young to remember this old
favourite (God, that really makes me feel old), you must collect
the  parts  of  the  ship  which  fall  from  the sky (who needs
realism?)  and  then fly over to the far right hand side to drop
them in place. Then collect the little fuel pods which also fall
and  fill  up the rocket. Once the ship's been filled simply fly
down and touch it and whooosh! - you're away! To the next level,
anyway...

This  may sound easy, and indeed it would be were it not for the
hordes  of  nasty  aliens  which  in true alien fashion kill you
instantly.  Why  doesn't  somebody write a game in which you and
the alien debate for a while, maybe begin negotiations to see if
instant  termination  is  all  it's cracked up to be? The player
could  maybe  be  equipped  with  an  alien-repellant space suit
(although that might conceivably ruin the game. Hmmm).
BM                       Disc Contents

SMARTPHONE  is  a  shareware thing by William McGugan (MORK). It
isn't  an  AI  chip  for  your  telephone  to render it "smart",
enabling  you  to hold meaningful conversations with it and play
it  at  chess,  but  a sort of address book thing. I suppose you
could  pretend  it's  an  AI  chip,  though.  It  could be quite
amusing, in fact. Tell a younger cousin that your mate Bill (who
you  are  on  the phone to, of course) is in fact the man in the
telephone,  and  he  can't  get  out.  Then laugh evilly as said
younger cousin gets a good belting for dismantling the telephone
trying to get the wee man out. Har har har.

You  could  always just use this utility as God (or in this case
Mork)  intended,  by entering the names and addresses of friends
and  businesses  and  FRED  and  stuff into the program and then
allowing your SAM to phone them up! Hours of fun!

Oh  - I forgot to mention - if you ain't got a mouse, you're not
going  to  get very far with this. So buy one! NOW!!! (And order
Lemmings and SAMPaint with it for added value)
BM                       Disc Contents

MOD PLAYER is a major breakthrough for SAM owners. It allows you
to play Amiga music modules (SOUNDTRACKER, MED, PROTRACKER etc.)
on the Coupe! Stefan Drissen and Edwin Blink are responsible for
this,  mainly  Stefan I believe, with a screen by Robert Van Der
Weeke.

Just  load  the  program  and  then enter the name of the module
we've  provided for you - it's called BACARD.MOD and compared to
the 2/3K we're used to for E-Tunes this takes 35K! And it's tiny
compared  to some modules you find for the Amiga. We're going to
try  to  get  some  more modules for later FREDs, but until then
feel free to convert your own. Here's how:

1)- Find an Amiga
2)- Find a music module. There are plenty going about in PD
    circles, so it shouldn't be too hard.
3)- Find a PC disc-reading utility for the Amiga, AND for the
    SAM. KE-Disc on FRED 36 will do nicely for the SAM, as will
    PC Suite.
BM                       Disc Contents

4)- Proceed to copy the MOD file onto the MS-DOS disc. Make sure
    that the MOD file is NOT compressed. Many have been cut down
    to size with utilities like PowerPacker in order to fit them
    onto discs, but these compressed ones won't work with SAM.

    Files called blahblah.MOD.PP, PP.MOD.blahblah etc are very
    probably compressed.

5)- Load up your PC disc reader on SAM, and transfer the code
    file DIRECTLY to a SAM disc.

You  should now be able to load the module into Stefan's amazing
program!  The samples aren't quite as clear as they sound on the
Amiga  due  to  the  fact that some resolution has to be lost so
that  that  SAM  can handle things. This doesn't mar the quality
too much though - tracks still sound excellent!

As  I've  said,  we're  going  to try and fit further modules on
later FREDs, but they do use an enormous amount of disc space.
BM                       Disc Contents

Those of you who splashed out on E-Tracker might be left feeling
that  you've  just  kissed  another  wad  of  notes  goodbye for
nothing.  Don't  worry  though.  Just  because we're now able to
listen  to  tracks  created  on the Amiga, it doesn't mean we're
going  to be able to use them in games and demos and things.

The  SAM  can  play  these  Amiga  tunes, but that's pretty much
pushing  it  to  the  limits. There is no package planned to use
sampled  sounds either, which is in itself a bad thing, but good
news if you've bought E-Tracker. I'm afraid we're all just going
to  have  to  listen  to  these  tunes as a sort of "standalone"
activity  -  no accompanying games which people write to pad out
the  discs  of  music  which are published at present (Dyzonium,
Waterworks etc).

SAMPAINT  gives  a  further  preview  of  the incredible new art
package   just   in   case  you're  not  yet  convinced  of  its
brilliance...

BM                       Disc Contents

E-TUNES  are  by  Andy Monk and Roy Oldroyd this month, and yep,
I'm  afraid  it's  still that same ol' E-Tune playing routine. I
keep  promising myself that I'll get round to doing a new screen
of  some  sort,  but  you  know  how  it  is  when you're a born
procrastinator  (and  no,  that is NOT a rude word), and an idle
one at that.

SMARTFILE  is  the  second  shareware program by William McGugan
this  month, and I shall solidly resist the temptation to waffle
about  converting  crap files into smart ones, much as I avoided
it  for  the SMARTPHONE program. This is a directory utility and
needs MasterDOS to work properly. It has  a  comprehensive  WIMP
environment, and can be used with the keyboard  or  ideally  the
mouse. It's much easier to use with the mouse, by  the  way,  so
I'd advise you to get one (much as  I  did  for  the  SMARTPHONE
description. Am I starting to get repetitive here?).

Instructions  are provided, so I won't bother with details here.
(Lazy as ever).
BM                       Disc Contents

OMAHF is an acronym. "For what?" I expect you're wondering, eyes
burning  with  fervent  curiosity, hunched by the screen anxious
not   to   miss   a  thing.  Could  it  be  the  solution  to  a
long-forgotten  game  of  hunt the thimble - "On My Aunt Helen's
Fireplace"?

Could  it  even  be  the cry of a frustrated customer in a local
fast food place - "Order My And Harry's Fries"?

Or  is  it  short  for  "One  Man And His Frog", a popular rural
activity much like Sheepdog Trials  except  involving  amphibian
beings?

Well,  I'll  put you out of your misery, dear reader, before you
phone  Colin  and tell him I'm going through one of those phases
again - it is in fact the one with the frog. Yes, honest. It is!

Blame  MATT  ROUND  for  this,  if  you're  of  the anti-surreal
brigade, for his is the warped mind responsible for this.
BM                       Disc Contents

OMAHF  is  another  Gamesmaster game, you see, and the object of
the  game is the rounding up of numerous sheep into a pen in the
fastest possible time. You, by the way, play the frog (ribbit!).
Yes. Been taking the medication eh Matt? Lovely, lovely.

The  surrealist  himself has written an explanatory piece of his
own, available upon selecting option K from the main menu, which
you may like to read.

Haunted  House  is  an  adventure game by Jonathan Rust, just to
show that we don't bear a grudge against all you adventurers out
there in reader- land. Created with the creation utility on FRED
40,  this places you, the reader, (well, it's not going to place
your  Great  Uncle Bert with the wonky bowels somewhere, is it?)
in  a  placed  swarming  with  ghosties - the proverbial Haunted
House.  Woooaaah!  Sorry.  Just  my  ghost  impression.  Did  it
frighten you? Sorry.

Boo!
BM                       Disc Contents

It's  back!  Hurrah!  Bits  N  Bobs makes it's return! It may be
without  its  smart  front  end  and containing only a couple of
programs,  but by Jove (who IS Jove? And who originally sat next
to him?) it's here and here with a vengeance.

The  first  program  draws  pie-charts for you, should you be so
polite as to load it up and converse with it. If for example you
run  a  SAM  magazine, and Matt Round contributes 9 programs and
Stefan  Drissen  only  8  (a  bad month for each, I think) you'd
enter  the  data as 9 and 8. The program will then do you a pie-
chart  representing the proportion of the magazine done by each.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an automatic Clear Chart
option, so you need to re-load or re-run the program to do a new
chart. Bummer, huh? Never mind. It's still a mightily impressive
progette and mucho thankos to Luke Falla for it.

Andrew  Collier,  who  actually received a credit in #40 for not
doing  anything at all (sorry Andrew - I bet you were REALLY mad
at that!) provided the second program.
BM                       Disc Contents

It's  a  universe  simulator, and I've a good mind not to credit
Andrew  in  the  credits  part just to even the score. I suppose
I'll  let  him  off  though, as it was only a first offence. The
fact  that it wasn't in any way his fault is also a factor here,
but enough of that - onto the program itself.

Universe  simulates the happenings when two heavenly bodies (Kim
Basinger  perhaps?)  come  together  (ah  - 'tis Kim and myself.
Goodie!)  in  space (ooh, kinky!). You specify the masses of the
two bodies, their initial velocities and their angles of motion.
Their  vectors, I suppose. Or am I just showing my complete lack
of  understanding  of physics here? Oh right. I'll shut up then.
You  also  specify  a  universal  gravitational  constant  which
strictly speaking is not accurate, and I think we need 100 lines
from  young  Andrew  before  we accept his next subscription. "I
shall   not  allow inaccuracies to disgrace the sectors of FRED"
100 times, okay Collier? Thank you.


BM                        Liquid Metal

That's  what  the  bloke  in Terminator 2 was made of wasn't it?
An  amazing  film that. If you missed it, I'd suggest you go and
get  it  on  video  (its  vid-AY-o!  -  bloke from Stoneybridge,
Absolutely-land) right now.

Seriously  though,  mercury  (the  element)  is  not to be taken
lightly.   Under  no  circumstances  should  you  allow  physics
teachers  to throw small bottles of the stuff at you. And if you
do,  at  least  have  the sense not to use your teeth to try and
catch the thing. It HURTS!

Remember  Van  de  Graaf generators? They were cool! We'd all be
there, holding hands, standing on little polystyrene plates with
our hair doing bizarre things. The teacher would say, "You'll be
fine  as  long  as  nobody  lets  go"  and what happens? Yes, of
course,  somebody lets go. And we all died instantly, and nobody
lived  happily  ever  after.  This  page of garbage, by the way,
signifies  the  end  of  the magazine. Apart from the credits of
course (will Andrew Collier get his mention? Oh, the suspense!).
BM                          Credits

Editor: Brian McConnell. Just for a change, like.
Thanks to:

Matt Round                    Graham Burtenshaw
Pauli Lindgren                Roy Oldroyd
William McGugan               Andy Monk
David Lewis                   Andrew Collier
Stefan Drissen                Luke Falla
Jonathan Rust


Cheques payable to:                       Phone: (0382) - 535963

FRED Publishing
[redacted]                                     ===>> MUSIC ===>>
                                               ==>> SECTION ==>>
                                               =>> THIS WAY! =>>

BM                       Music Section

Too  often recently I've been leaving the Music Section, clearly
the  most  important part of the whole disc, until the very last
minute.  This  has  resulted in some loss of quantity of stuff I
review,  but  this  month  there  shall  be  no  such outrageous
behaviour.  This  month  the  Music Section is being done almost
before anything else and so shall be most triumphant!

Before  I review anything can I just say a heartfelt thankyou to
anybody who bought that Mr Blobby single. You really can't begin
to  comprehend  the  joy  this brought to me as the DJ announced
that Take That were at number two in the Chrimbo chart. This was
truly  a  delightful  moment,  and I like to think it wrecked my
sister's entire Christmas. So once again, thank you.

Speaking of Take That, I have to admit it would be good to be at
one  of  their concerts. Call me sick, but being the one male in
an  audience  of  thousands  of  16  year olds is not completely
without  its  merits.  Just  be sure to plug up the ol' ears and
'twould be well smart!
BM                       Music Section

On  second  thoughts,  nah.  NOTHING is worth that. Think of it.
Having  it  discovered  that you went to a TT concert, having it
plastered  over  the front pages of The Sun as soon as you reach
an important position in life. "I was a Take That fan - owner of
everything  in  Britain,  Brian  McConnell's  secret  can now be
revealed." No thanks.

But less of the drivel and onto the reviews.

                      Ministry - Psalm 69

Now  this is what I call an album. Beginning with highly intense
noise and ending with the same (with some in the middle for good
measure), this is not something you're going to hear on Radio 1.
Not  very  often,  anyway. I did hear "Jesus Built My Hotrod" on
Annie Whats-her-face's request show; that doesn't count though.

This  isn't the longest album on Earth, but with 9 tracks and 45
minutes of music it's hardly the shortest either.
BM                    Ministry - Psalm 69

The thing I like about this is that it's excellent for both home
listening  -  listen  while  you write FRED, do your homework or
whatever  - and for dancing. They play tracks at the local indie
place and it's excellent.

There's  not  actually  a bad track on this whole CD - just some
very  intense,  excellent  music.  It make take a bit of getting
used to, but boy is it worth it. 9 out of 10.


                         Pearl Jam - VS

Pearl   Jam   have   long  been  associated with Nirvana. Quotes
like  "No  matter how hard they try, they're still not Nirvana,"
are  not  unusual.  I  can't say that I've ever noticed anything
more than a very slight similarity between the two bands, and in
my  opinion PJ are considerably better than Nirvana. The members
of  the band come across as slightly less deranged than Kurt and
his mates, that's for sure.
BM                       Pearl Jam - VS

This,  the  follow-up  to  Ten,  is very similar to that earlier
album.  The  band haven't tried anything radically new, but have
instead  concentrated on strengthening their existing style; and
it's worked.

There's  nothing  to match the huge adrenalin-rush of Alive, but
Rearviewmirror  comes  close. That's probably the one track that
you  like the first time you hear it. For me, when I first heard
Ten  I  really  couldn't  see  what  the fuss was about. Then, I
borrowed  it  off  a  friend and after a few listens it all came
together.  That's  what  VS is about. The first listen or two it
meant  nothing,  but after leaving the CD on repeat for a couple
of  hours  everything fell into place, and this is possibly even
better  than Ten. It's more consistent, for one thing. Ten had a
few  tracks  that  weren't too great - not crap, but by no means
excellent  either. VS has no tracks that you skip just to get to
that really good one that comes next.


BM                       Pearl Jam - VS

It's  been  said  that this album features more of the band than
Ten,  which  many felt was built too much around Vedder's vocals
and  left  the rest of the band providing accompaniment. While I
wouldn't  say  that  Ten  was  quite  so  vocal-based,  there is
definitely more from the rest of the band in this.

Yep,  another  highly recommended album from FRED - 9 out of 10.
Best  tracks  are Rearviewmirror, Rats, Indifference and Go. And
Animal. And the rest, basically!


                   Boo Radleys - Giant Steps

I've  already  seen  this  get  Album  of  the  Year  Awards  in
magazines;  that  was  what caused me to buy it for myself. It's
not  likely,  therefore,  that  you're  going  to  see  it get a
shockingly  poor mark here. Quite simply, it's not a poor album.
I would give it Album of the Year were it better than everything
else  in '93, but it isn't quite that good, so I'm not going to.
BM                 Boo Radleys - Giant Steps

Very  strange  is  what this CD is, and no mistake. Over an hour
long  with  17 tracks, it takes a good while to get through it -
over  an  hour,  incredibly  enough.  The strange thing about it
though  is  that there's no consistency to the tracks. One might
be a good, honest, no frills Indy thing, followed by what sounds
like the Beatles on strange drugs.

Luckily, despite the weirdness of pretty much most of the album,
it  works.  It's  still  an  excellent album, but you have to be
fairly  open-minded  going into it. Expect a normal guitar-music
CD and you will be left dribbling at the sheer nonsense value of
some of it!

Not the best of '93, but still good. 8 out of 10.





BM                     The Orb - Live '93

Ah,  the  Orb. The Orb. Need I say more? The words "ambient" and
"Orb"  are pretty much interchangable these days, and this album
doesn't exactly hurt that situation.

Taken  from  various  concerts,  generally Tokyo, Copenhagen and
THAT  festival  (Glastonbury),  this  features  tracks from both
their  albums  Adventures... and UFOrb, plus a couple which were
released   as  singles  but  haven't  appeared  in  album  form.
Curiously,  some  of  their  best tracks have not been included,
Close  Encounters and Into The Fourth Dimension to name but two,
but what we've got is good enough. I suppose I can forgive them.

As  I've  said, this is a live album containing live versions of
existing  songs.  That  might make some people think twice about
spending money on such a CD (or 2 in this case, as it's a double
package).  As  most  of the tracks are warped and twisted nearly
(but    not   quite)  beyond  recognition, however, that line of
reasoning is not particularly valid.

BM                     The Orb - Live '93

Apart  from  being the Kings of Ambience, The Orb are also known
for some interesting samples. There are a few corkers here which
I won't spoil for you - just listen out for the Morphein Machine
and  turn  green  with envy at The Marijuana Bomb. Those two are
weird!

142  minutes  of  "music"  means that this is surely the longest
album of '93, and it's one of the best too. Quality AND quantity
(reminds  me  of  FRED,  somehow). The fact that it isn't really
anything  new,  despite  the  very  extensive remixing which has
taken place, means that I'm only going to give this 8 out of 10.

                              -+-

And  that  sums  up  this  month's really quite gargantuan Music
Section.  Eight  pages?  Nae bad. Other albums I've accummulated
over the Chrimbo spell include the Lemonheads and Superchunk and
a Therapy thing which I'll probably end up reviewing next issue.
For the moment though, adieu!                            - BRIAN

Letters & Reviews

BM                      A Brief Word...

"Tea."  That's  a  brief word. So's "a." In fact they don't come
much more brief than that. Sorry.

Slipping  back  into  reality  for a moment, can I ask some more
people  to  write  us letters?! We're kind of running short, you
see.  If  you can't think of anything of major global urgence to
discuss,  just  waffle on. I do it all the time and nobody seems
to  mind.  If  they do they're clearly too polite to mention it,
and  for that I'm grateful. Tell us about what happened at Uncle
Eric's  Christmas meal and why your mother isn't speaking to him
any more. I'm sure FRED readers would be intrigued. I would!

If  you  could  just scribble a few words next time you place an
order,  or  even  better,  type  them up (don't worry, we return
discs),  we'd  be very happy. It would make our day, believe me.
And  it  would  give  other  readers  a  few precious moments of
entertainment  as  well. Plus you'd become famous. Smart eh? You
could  become the next Robert Pain (who's back this issue, as it
happens).
                       Letter from A Laws

Hope you had a quiet and enjoyable festive season; now though it
is time to forget your hangover and return to work.

Enclosed  with this letter is a small order for no fewer than 26
back issue of FRED: issues 1 to 26 inclusive.

I  would also like to thank everybody or the one responsible for
their/his effort in returning FRED 40 before Christmas.

Whilst attempting to use NOTEPRINT [FRED #38 - a well smart word
pro  -  BRIAN]  by  Calvin  Allett,  I discovered a problem with
printing  a  screen dump. My solution is to run the program with
MasterBASIC  and change the command DUMP in line 9484 to DUMP 4.
Anyone who uses the above solution will be able to print exactly
the screen as shown.

I'll stop now, in case you're still suffering!


BM                      Reply to A Laws

Hungover? No no, not us.

The  person you need to thank for getting your FRED 40 to you on
time  is  none  other  than your very own postman, for if he had
fallen  over into the path of an oncoming Indian elephant, as is
quite  a  common  occurrence  in  the  Newcastle area, you quite
simply  wouldn't  have  received  your precious FRED at all! Now
isn't that a scary thought?

Thanks  for  the  Noteprint  pointer.  Even as I write, I've got
somebody travelling down to young Calvin's place of residence to
give him a sound bit of disciplining. We'll teach him to send in
half-finished  programs  to FRED. Ha! He'll be sorry! Is capital
punishment  perhaps  too strong for such an offense? No, I think
not...

                                                         - BRIAN


                    Letter from Robert Pain

Dear Brian,

Firstly,  as usual, I just have to congratulate you (and all the
contributors, of course) for the rather excellent issues of FRED
that  have  immerged  recently (namely 36-38). Issue 36: NotePad
(used  to  write  this)  was brilliant, the demos were class and
Mosaic  was  pretty cool (except I've beaten it on ALL levels so
beat  that!  (I said beat that, not beat me up, HEEEELLLLPPPP)).
Issue  37:  All  in  all,  pretty  good. Issue 38: What with the
lovely  Game  Over tune, the hilarious AXE Trek and that classic
Bomb! game, the best for a long time I think.

Time  to  air  my views on some of the things raised recently in
the letters section.  I  too  find  it  incredibly  frustrating/
time-comsuming trying to create E-Tracker sounds. Rarely  can  I
create a sound exactly to my  liking,  more  often  than  not  I
settle for some odd thing that I created at a different time. In
actual fact  a  decompiler  is  an  AMAZING  idea,  one  that  I
personally would fully support, as I'm sure others would.
                    Letter from Robert Pain

On  to  the subject of Speccy material. I can clearly understand
that  some  people don't like the Speccy stuff. I myself owned a
128k  +2  for  a  few  years,  but  that doesn't mean I hate the
conversions. OK, so things like Podpersons aren't too hot; after
all,  it  is  old  ('89?)  and  the  music  and graphics weren't
amazing, but Axel F was alright and Game Over was very likeable.
Shock! (ish 30) was neat, but unfortunately quite large. I think
that  things like LSD or NMI 3 etc. should be converted, even if
they are published over a series of issues.

Finally,  are  there  any  SAM  PD  sources  around? Last time I
enquired there weren't, but I'm always hopeful!

                   Yours sincerely,

                            Robert Pain



BM                    Reply to Robert Pain

Glad to have you back Robert! We all missed him didn't we, Other
Readers (Yes! - chorus of other readers).

The  past  few  issues  have  been  pretty excellent, (who needs
modesty?!)  but  that's  solely  because  of  the  contributors.
Without  their  tireless work I'm afraid FRED would simply cease
to  exist. All those who've contributed to an issue please stand
up and take a bow so we can see who you all are ................
....................... thank you.

An  E-Tracker  module  decompressor  would be good, wouldn't it?
I'll  need to investigate the possibility of compressing the big
78k  things  with a conventional compressor and the allowing the
users  to  decompress  those at home. I'll see how that goes. As
far  as  I know, though, there's no custom-written program to do
this  waiting  around  the  corner.  It's  in ESI's court now, I
reckon.


BM                    Reply to Robert Pain

As  for  Speccy  stuff:  so,  the debate continues. I think it's
clear  that like so many aspects of FRED, computing, and life in
general,  some  people like things, others don't. Simple. I like
the  Speccy  things, and I'm the editor, so they shall remain!

(I love power, don't you?)

I  haven't  heard  anything from PD libraries since my last plea
for  info,  so  I'm going to assume that no, there aren't any. I
don't  think  there's  the  software-writing platform to support
any,  to  be  honest.  We're lucky to get the software we get at
FRED;  I  can't  see  there being thousands of other programmers
writing  programs  and just leaving them in the disc box to rot,
so I assume that there aren't many people writing things.


                                                         - BRIAN


                Thing from SAM Spec Network Club

[redacted]

Dear Sir,

Please  find  enclosed  a news release from the SAM Spec Network
Club which we feel would be of interest to your subscribers. The
nature  of  the new service means that we wish to bring the SSNC
[sorry  - I refuse to type that name in full ever again - BRIAN]
to the attention of as many SAM and Spectrum owners as possible.

Any assistance in achieving this would be  gratefully  accepted.
Hence, could you please send details of your  advertising  rates
and printing deadlines to the above address?
                                                    - M Rookyard
                       SSNC News Release

A  new service has been set up for SAM and Spectrum owners. Many
enthusiasts  feel  isolated in that they do not know anyone else
who  is  also  a  SAM or Spectrum owner. This is especially true
with  the  SAM.  Alternatively, some people would like to set up
and  run  a  local  users'  group  but are unable to find enough
people in their area.

The  SSNC  is  intended to put users in contact with other users
with  similar  interests  in  their  local  area. The service is
available  for owners of Spectrums (all models), SAMs and QLs. A
small  administrative  fee of around £2 will be charged to cover
the costs of postage, advertising, printing, etc.

Anyone  who  would  like  further  details on how the SSNC works
should  send an SAE to the address above. Membership of the club
will  entitle   SAM  owners  to  use  the new picture digitising
service  to  be  provided soon by Rooksoft as a stop-gap service
until the new MiDGET system is completed.

BM                  Reply to That SSNC Thing

Not a bad idea that. User groups are an excellent way to keep up
with  the  times, exchange ideas, make new friends, etc. They're
also  good  places  to get through loads of beer n tabs (for the
older members, anyway).

Good  luck  with  the  club,  M. Are there still a lot of Speccy
owners  still going? It seems hard to believe somehow. Sorry - I
expect I'm being offensive to some people with that.

We  don't charge for adverts, we just chuck them in if we can be
bothered.  We  don't  have a printing date either; believe it or
not, FRED is in fact a disc magazine. Hmmm - is this perchance a
Standard Letter I have before me? We generally send the disc off
to  be  duplicated during the first week of each month if that's
any help.

                                                         - BRIAN


                   Letter from Pauli Lindgren

Hello C & B,

I  agree  with  those  who  say  that the white text on black is
boring. It is also difficult to read on a TV with no scart (RGB)
interface.  I  usually change it to black on white (paper 122 is
quite  nice),  which  is much more readable. The problem is that
this  has  to be done every time I start reading the magazine or
letters.   It  is  irritating,  especially  since  the  keyboard
scanning does not work correctly in the colour menu.

Perhaps  you could alter the Fred text viewer so that the colour
settings  are  stored  into  some  safe memory area, such as DOS
page,  so  that  they remain in effect as long as the SAM is not
reset. I have included an example of how to do that on my disc.

However,  it  would be better if you could change the whole look
of  the  magazine. I would like to see multiple colours and text
sizes, perhaps even graphics (as on the SAM demo disk).

                   Letter from Pauli Lindgren

I  don't like the current magazine, where all the text is just a
single  long block. You should have some kind of front page with
short  description  of  each  item and a menu to choose any item
directly.

You  wrote on Fred 35, that there is no point expanding the SAM.
I  strongly  disagree  with  that. SAM, like any other computer,
MUST be expanded, or it will die. Maybe not many people will buy
SAM  to  make music, but they do not buy Amigas either. They are
buying PC's with good 16-BIT sound-cards and MIDI interfaces.

Making  music  is  one area where SAM has great potential. There
are some good music programs at low cost, such as E-Tracker. SAM
also has a built-in MIDI port, and the MIDI sequencer program is
as  good  as any similar program on PC or MAC. In fact, the MIDI
interface  is  one possible way to expand SAM sound capabilities
without  buying  any  SAM-specific  hardware. I wonder why games
programmers  don't  use  the MIDI interface in their programs as
optional sound device?
                   Letter from Pauli Lindgren

Controlling  the  MIDI is quite easy and it consumes very little
CPU time.

You  say  that  adding  flags  for plurals on Spell Master would
increase  the  size of dictionary too much. I dont think so. You
see,  there are already many plural words in the dictionary, and
those  can  then  be  left out. The dictionary could even become
smaller  than it is now! And what do you mean "it is too late to
make changes on Spell Master"? Has the programmer died, or what?
It  is common practice in the software market, that new versions
are released from time to time.

Is  there  anybody  who knows about E-Tracker? I wonder if it is
possible  to  make an E-Tracker player that runs with interrupts
enabled. Now, since the interrupts are disabled and the E-Player
takes  quite a lot of CPU time, it blocks the line interrupts at
the top part of the screen. If one line interrupt is missed, all
the rest will be missed too.

                   Letter from Pauli Lindgren

Therefore,  line palette switching can't be used at the top part
of  the  screen (at least the top 15 lines or so). Sometimes the
E-Player takes so much CPU time that it blocks  line  interrupts
even in the middle of the screen  causing  screen  to  flash.  I
found this problem when making my screen viewer program.  On  my
screens on this disk, there are at least 18  lines  at  the  top
without line palette switching, and still you can see  a  screen
flash now and then when running the slide show.

I  have  also  found  a  problem  with  the Lord Insanity screen
compressor. It is supposed to be able to decompress screens at a
hidden page. However, sometimes the decompression routine causes
the  page  to  be  changed  so  that  the decompressed screen is
displayed  immediately.  When the screen is displayed before the
palette  is  set,  it  does  not  look  nice.  Also, when I load
multiple  screens  (as  in  the  slide  show of my screen viewer
program),  I  must  change the display back to menu screen after
each  screen is decompressed.

                   Letter from Pauli Lindgren

This seems to depend on the screen compressed; the effect always
occurs  with  the  same screens. (This time it happens only with
screen  SKYWISE.Z)  If  I  compress  the  same screen again, the
situation does not change.

Since  my  last  letter in Fred 35, I have been able to test the
Kaleidoscope (Thanks for Pentti Nykanen for lending me one.) So,
here is a short review:


                          KALEIDOSCOPE

The  Kaleidoscope was supposed to be a device that increases the
number  of colours available on SAM from 128 to 32000. You might
think  that  it  makes  it  possible to select 16 colours from a
palette  of  32000. Well, it does not. Kaleidoscope has just one
8-bit  register  to select the colours. There are 3 bits for red
and green and 2 bits for blue.

                   Letter from Pauli Lindgren

Writing  a  non-zero value to these bits decreases the intensity
of  each  colour  component  by  selected  value.  However, this
affects  all  the  colours on screen. Or more precisely, all the
colours  that  have  lower  bit  of  red,  green  or  blue  set.
(Kaleidoscope only affects the lower bit of each colour.)

You  can  have 4 possible levels for lower bit of blue, 8 levels
for lower bits of red and green. Together with existing colours,
this  gives  10  *  18  *  18  * 2 = 6480 different colours (not
32000).  Some of the colours (the brighter ones) are so close to
each other that they are indistinguishable to human eye. Others,
especially  darker  colours  could  perhaps  be useful. Probably
Kaleidoscope  could  be  used in some applications where the new
dark  colours  are needed, but I think such situations are rare,
since colours can not be used independently of each other.

And  what  about the Hardware Development Kit, then? Well, it is
nothing like what I expected.

                   Letter from Pauli Lindgren

There  is no prototyping area that could be freely used to build
hardware.  You  can  only  build  the  Kaleidoscope and a simple
parallel  I/O  for  controlling LEDs, and that is all. HDK could
probably  be  used  for  teaching  the  basic  ideas of computer
hardware,  but  not  for hardware development. That is a pity; a
real Hardware Development Kit would have been so useful.


                         Pauli Lindgren
                       Helsinki, Finland









BM                  Reply to Pauli Lindgren

Jeez.  Where  to begin with all that! Thanks for taking the time
to  let us know what you think about the magazine; it's the only
way we can measure the good and bad points of it.

The current viewer is becoming dated, there's certainly no doubt
about  that.  The  problem  is  that we need somebody to write a
viewer.  The  new viewer also needs to be small enough so as not
to  use  up  half  the  disc. The routine at the moment takes up
virtually no space on the disc, which is of course ideal. A menu
system  for reading text is what I myself prefer. That's what we
used  on  Enceladus  back  in  the  old days, and I think it was
preferable  to  use. Again, that's something we're going to have
to seriously think about sorting out.

Expanding  the  SAM. Here we are again. It would be nice to have
hard drives,accelerators, decent  sound  cards,  graphics  cards
etc, but they  simply  aren't  going  to  happen.  The  SAM  is,
unfortunately, a very dated machine.

BM                  Reply to Pauli Lindgren

In  a  world  where  the  A1200,  a 32-BIT machine, is looked on
(wrongly) by many as a toy, an 8-BIT really does not have a hope
in  Hell. It is a very friendly machine, we who use it all think
it wonderful, but it is never going to be used professionally in
the  music  or  graphics  industries. The Amiga is used in these
areas;  there  are  numerous  products available for it which no
home user in his right mind would splash out on.

Your reluctance to view the Amiga as a "professional" machine is
just  a  mild  case  of  what  would happen to the SAM even with
professional  grade  expansions  (which  are not going to happen
anyway,  in  my opinion). Nobody in "the industry" would take it
at  all seriously unless they knew a lot more about the SAM than
the man in the street.

The  SAM  does  not have a glimmer of a future trying to compete
with  PCs,  Amigas,  Macs and all the other "proper" machines in
the world.

BM                  Reply to Pauli Lindgren

I  think  that ESI are probably the only people who can help you
regarding  E-Tracker  matters.  I  can't,  that's for sure! Same
applies  to  the  other  technical  aspects of your letter - I'm
pretty clueless when it comes to that sort of thing.

Yes,  with  hindsight  I  can see it was not a wise statement to
make   about  plurals  doubling  the  size  of  the  Spellmaster
dictionaries.  Using  various  flags  and things probably is the
best  way  to  go  about  it.  Is it really worth re-writing the
program for such a trivial aspect though? I suppose I'll receive
thousands  of  letters from the pedants telling me that only one
variable  in  line xxxx needs changed, but never mind. I'll risk
that. The point is that Spellmaster is not going to be upgraded.
Apart from that dictionary quibble it's fine. Isn't it?

Thanks  for reviewing those hardware items. It sounds to me like
they're  both  a complete waste of time. I mean, what software's
emerged for the Kaleidoscope? The thing's not even available any
more as far as I know!                                   - BRIAN
BM                         Last Page

After  that  I'm  knackered,  and  I'm  going to bed. But first,
another small plea - can somebody review Lemmings, SAMPaint and
Driver for us?

Thank you, and good night.

Smartphone Instructions

SmartPhone  is  an  address/telephone utility. Being fully mouse
controlled,  SmartPhone  is  very  user  friendly. Once all your
addresses  have  been entered you can search them instantly, and
dial  their  number  at  the click of a mouse. SmartPhone can be
used   to  store  your  friends  addresses,  business  contacts,
restaurants  etc.  Addresses  can  be printed out onto labels or
envelopes. Useful for the small business or home user alike.


                        Getting Started

On the SmartPhone disk is a file of useful addresses. Load this
file   by  going  to  the Display  window   (bottom  right)  and
selecting  [  File ]. A menu will then appear displaying all the
file  options.  Select  "Load add.", after a short delay another
menu  will  appear  displaying  all  the SmartPhone files on the
disk.  Click on "Useful.p". The first address will be displayed.
Notice  two arrows on the right of the window.
These  are  used to step through each address. Click on the down
arrow to select the following address, and click on the up arrow
to  select  the  previous address. The number of records and the
current record is displayed in the Info window (top right).

                          Using menus

SmartPhone  uses several menus. To select an option from a menu,
click on it with the mouse. If you have made a mistake and don't
want  to  select  any  option,  simply  click  else-where on the
screen.

                       Adding an address

To  add  another  address,  click on [ Add ]. The Display window
will  clear  and a type cursor will appear oposite Name. Type in
the  name  (Surname  first  then forename eg. "Bloggs Fred") and
press . Do the same for each field. For the phone number
put  the  area  code  in  brackets  followed  by the rest of the
number. The Notes field is used for any other relevant details.

                      Changing an Address

To  alter  an  address  once  it  had  been entered, select that
address then click on the relevant field name eg. Address, Town,
Postcode  etc. The field will be highlighted. To clear it, press
 and type the new field. To add to what's already there,
just continue typing and press .

                      Deleting an Address

To delete an address from the file, select the address and click
on  [  Delete  ].  NB  - Make sure you have selected the correct
address, a deleted address cannot be un-deleted!

                    Searching for an Address

To  search  for  an Address, click on the space in the middle of
the  Search  window (top left), and type in the name you want to
search  for. You only need to type in the first few letters, eg.
to  search for "Smartsoft" you only need to type "SMA". Click on
[ Start ].
If  the Address exists it will be displayed. If it's not the one
you require the click on [ Next ] until it's displayed.

                           Print Menu

Click  on  [ Print ]. From there you can select whether you want
to  print  just  the  selected  address,  all addresses or print
search.  Print search will print all the addresses that would be
found with the search window.

                           Clear Menu

Click on [ Clear ]. From there you can select wether you wish to
clear just the addresses, the quick-dials or both.

                           File Menu

Clicking  on  [  File  ]  will give the following options; Save,
Load, Directory, Drive 1/2, Quit.


                        Saving the file

Click  on  "Save Add.", the save window will appear. If you want
to  save  with  the same filename then click on [ Save ]. If you
want  to  change the filename then click on the current filename
and type in the new one.

                         Loading a file

Click  on  "Load Add.". After a short delay the Load window will
appear displaying all the SmartPhone files on the disk. If there
are more files that could be fitted into the window then up/down
arrows will appear. Click on these to scroll the window up/down.
Click on the required file and it will be loaded.

                           Directory

Click  on  "Directory". After a short delay the Directory window
will appear. Use this in the same way as the Load window.


                           Drive 1/2

Click on "Drive 1/2" to change drive.

                              Quit

Click on "Quit" to reset the machine and return to Basic.

                            Dialing

SmartPhone has  a  unique  feature.  Any  phone  number  can  be
automatically dialed. It works by imitating a "Tone dial" phone.
To dial a number, first select the address. Hold the mouth-piece
of the phone a few centimeters from speaker on your monitor / TV
then select [ Dial ]. You should here a few short bleeps and the
number will be dialed. Normally the area code, in brackets, will
not  be dialed. If you want to include the area code then select
[ Code ] in the Info window to toggle the area code on / off.



                             Notes

You will get best results if the volume is turned fairly low and
the reception is good. If you are still have problems then click
on  [  Speed  ], in the Info window. This selects a slower speed
for the tone dialing.

                           Quick Dial

There  will  be  some numbers you'll use more often than others.
These  often-used numbers can be put into the Quick Dial window
(Bottom  left).  To  do  this  select the required Address, then
click,   with   the left button,   on  a  vacant  space  in  the
quick-dials.  The  right  button  is used to dial these numbers.
Operate  this  as  you would with the Dial option in the Display
window.





                Extra on version 1.1 - Tone Pad

If  you  don't  have  a  tone phone then to use such services as
phone  banking  you  will need to buy a tone-pad. These can cost
anything from 8 to 10 pounds. SmartPhone can save you this money
as  it  has  a built in tone pad. Point to the bottom right hand
corner with the mouse and click. You can now use the keyboard as
a  tone  pad.  The  keys  1  to  9,  "#",  and "*" will give the
appropriate tones, the function keys will work as numbers. Press
 when finished.