Description
Issue 37
| Item | Author | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Menu | Brian McConnell | |
| Magazine | Article On Computer Storage Systems | |
| Letters | Days of Sorcery, Search: “Witching Hour, The” Reviewed | |
| Axel F | Stefan Drissen | Sampled Tune!! Excellent Version |
| Pot Noodle | Derek Marriott Kevin Marriott | Machine Code Demo |
| Driver | Steve Taylor | Selection Of Screens From DRiVER WIMP system |
| Maze | Paul Horridge | Fast Mc 3d Maze Game |
| Mc Pt 26 | Steve Taylor | More Techy Details For Driver |
| E-Tunes | Andy Monk Robert Pain John Hutchins | Selection Of E-tracker Tunes |
| Witching Hour | John Vincent | Playable Demo Of Games Master Hit |
| Invaders | Chris White | Diy Space Invaders, Concluded |
| Podpersons | Stefan Drissen | Converted Speccy Demo |
| E-Tune Player | Brian McConnell | Play Individual Tunes Of Your Choice |
| Rainbow Maker | Ben Wyatt | Draws Cute Little Rainbows (Awww...) |
| Diary | Paul Crompton | Enable Friends To Blackmail You... |
| Cards | Paul Walker | Two Basic Card Games |
Magazine
BM Editorial
Interestingly enough, this issue was just about mind-numbingly
early. I'm writing this last bit of text (ie the whole
magazine!) on the 26th of August, but due to events beyond my
control (Colin's going off on holiday or something) you'll
probably still end up getting it mid-Spetember. Ah well. I
tried. The reason for this sudden burst of frantic
disc-compiling is because the way things were going, I'd end up
having to finish off FRED 38 while in the middle of Fresher's
Week at University. Obviously when presented with a choice of
(a) do lots of work now and be able to get legless in October,
and (b) do bog-all now and then sit FREDing when every other
student in the country is getting puggled, I opted for the most
sensible long term option. Oh, I wonder which option I plumped
for. Hmmm. That's a toughy.
Can't work it out? Alright - it was (b). Difficult eh? Don't
worry though, I'll be sticking to shandies all week (remember
kids - there's nothing mature about getting drunk. That's why
only adults are allowed to do it... (eh?)).
BM Editorial
I found a little story in the pages of Teletext - there's a
daily computer thing on page 470 on C4 - that some sick people
out there may find amusing. I did. Apparently the launch of the
Atari Falcon was delayed because the first batch of machines
failed the quality control test. Bit of a blow for Atari, that.
So they worked hard, and then came along the second batch. This
lot also failed. Bummer eh? Anyway, somebody smelled a rat, and
it turns out that it was the quality control equipment that was
on the blink!! And people thought the SAM had a bad start!
The Falcon's now sold about 7500 machines. Commodore's A1200,
perceived by many to be a direct rival to the Falcon, has
already sold 44,000 and sales of 200,000 are hoped for by the
end of year. Bye bye Mr Atari... Speaking of Commodore, a
certain Mr Slavin and myself are considering beginning a "Get a
free CD32" which involves writing to the big C and well, asking
for a free CD32. It cannot fail. AXE said "Let's go for a Cray,"
but I think that that's just being too greedy. A CD32 would do
me nicely, thank you.
BM Editorial
Those of you who gave the FREDEX thing more than a cursory
glance, in particular tried to save some data which you added
yourself, will have found problems. For a start, the data when
saved is not compressed and wouldn't fit onto the disc if you
didn't copy it all from issue 36 onto a different one. Secondly,
you wouldn't be able to load in the saved data without messing
around in the main program. Never mind though. If you think that
that's unacceptable, just be grateful that you weren't born 170
years ago; you may well have spent your childhood up chimneys.
So there!
I've just been watching a bit of Newsnight, and it had that
Bottomley woman defending the NHS reforms. I've decided to make
it an ambition of mine to get a politician on a program like
that, ask a fairly awkward question, and DEMAND a yes or no
answer. - Are you creating a two-tier health service? Yes or no?
- If I may just say... - YES OR NO?! - It's not a question of...
- YES OR NO! YES... OR... NO!!!!!!!
BM Editorial
My 512k expansion's on the blink again. If it doesn't stop
sliding off the pins, I'm afraid it's going to get hit by a
mallet. Running off at a complete tangent, has anybody noticed
that proverbs normally have completely contradictory colleagues?
"He who hesitates is lost" is matched perfectly by "Look before
you leap" while "One man's meat is another man's meat is another
man's poison" and "What's good for the goose is good for the
gander" cancel each other out nicely. That's something that
REALLY annoys me, although quite why I've chosen this moment to
air this view I can't really say. Perhaps it has something to do
with the fact that it's 1:45 am. Yes.
Why is that I'm never able to finish these things off mid-
afternoon? I always seem to have to write the main magazine part
in the middle of night. I bet the unions would have something to
say about this. Anyway, the moral of this editorial, and also
the title of "Mr Don and Mr George"'s 1st episode, is this:
You can run, but you can't hide your legs... - BRIAN
CM Steve's Software
Right, Steve has sent in two new products of his. Due to their
specialised nature they can't really be reviewed, so you'll have
to be content with a few details.
Firstly, we have SC_24. This is a printer driver to enable those
of you lucky enough to own 24 pin printers to output Mode 4
screens in 16 shades.
If you've got an Epson compatible printer (Citizen and Star are
the most popular) you can produce a picture about 1/3 A4 size,
and if you have an IBM Proprinter X24E compatible (ie Canon
bubblejet) the output is credit card sized.
The disc comes with ten sample screens that print out very
nicely, but of course you can print out your own. Naturally, you
can choose where on the paper the dump will appear, and you can
just output part (ie a quarter) of a screen or all of it.
CM SC_24
You change all the parameters by altering LET statements in the
program - it's all very easy and effective, but the user-
friendliness hardly jumps out and grabs you.
Having said that, the program does what it's supposed to do, and
that's all that really matters.
Personally, I don't really have much need for a screen dumper,
but if you do have a 24 pin printer then you should seriously
consider splashing out the £3.25 just on the off chance that you
find the improved print quality not worth living without.
Steve will also be stocking Canon printers in the near future
and he'll throw in a free copy of SC_24 with every Canon bought
from him.
If I can find an appropriate screen, I'll dump it out and put it
on a newsletter sometime soon....
CM SC_Disc Protector Unit
Aha - the solution to the old "disc corrupts when reset is
pressed" problem. This little hardware device was devised by
Edwin Blink (author of Comet assembler) and comes in at £15.
The SC_DPU (still a mouthfull...) is a small chip which has to
be soldered onto the main PCB inside your SAM. This involves
opening up your machine (yes, disconnecting those keyboard
ribbons AGAIN) and doing a spot of soldering to add the three
wires to SAM's PCB.
This isn't a tricky task, but it's easy to make a mistake. If
you're not careful you could do your machine a fair amount of
damage. I'd suggest paying a local electrician to do the job if
you've never soldered before. Naturally neither Steve's
Software, Blue Alpha or West Coast are responsible for any
damage you do to your machine.
Having used a soldering iron a handful of times before, I did
the job myself. It all went well - the accompanying instructions
CM SC_DPU
explained everything in steps that even I could understand and
the entire task only took 10 minutes.
The chip has now been in the SAM for several weeks now and there
are no signs of any side effects. I've also tried desperately
hard to corrupt a disc - without success. So it seems to work.
Personally, I've never reset my SAM with a disc in it since I
corrupted the only master of a FRED a year or two back and so
this chip is only a safety net which I don't expect to use much
but nevertheless, had this chip been around when I reset the
machine with the FRED master in it, I would have paid a small
fortune for that chip to have been in there. Still - what's 20
hours of solid work between SAM owners?
Basically, if you or your brother/son/dad/girlfriend is in the
habit of corrupting discs then SC_DPU will solve your problems.
If like me, you kicked the habit, then you'll have to decide
whether £15 is worth forking out.
CM SC_DPU
Again, like SC_24, the conclusion is that if you could use it,
it's worth the money. If not, then buy them and hope they come
in useful sometime.
Steve also tells me that version 2 of SC_DTP is still on
schedule for an early '94 release.
SC_DPU and SC_24 are not available through FRED, so if you want
to get your hands on them, then here's the details :
Steve's Software
[redacted]
CM Got Style Writer?
Following a very complimentary review of Style Writer in a
recent issue of FORMAT, there has been a lot of demand for
colour clip art compatible with it. Although you can take clip
art from other sources (even Mode 4 screens!), I've had requests
for a disc full of a wide variety of clip art.
This the Stylish Images disc came into production. The disc
features 78 colour image files that can be loaded directly into
the mini-DTP Style Writer. The images cover a wide range of uses
ranging from birthday and christmas cards to credit card signs,
vehicles, animals - and even the SAM character!
The disc was created by Carol Brooksbank (FORMAT and FileManager
fame) and even includes a simple program to let you convert the
clip art back into a Mode 4 screen should you wish it.
The disc costs £3, and if you've got Style Writer or are into
Clip Art, it's well worth the money. Available from the usual
FRED address....
BM News
This has nothing to do with the SAM, but in the industry in
general a standard for visual output on CD has been agreed upon.
There's been an audio standard for ages (which is why, say, a
Sony audio CD will work on a Technics CD player), but despite
equipment like Philips' laser discs having been around for about
as long as audio CDs, we've had to wait until now for an
industry-wide standard. The standard is known as Video CD (how
do they think up such exotic names?). The CD32 thing that AXE
and myself are going to try to get free from Commodore (and hey,
I think it might just work) adheres to this standard, so before
long it could be a case of watching films on your Amiga! There
are no plans for a SAM CD peripheral, but that's hardly
surprising.
A factory belonging to the Sumitomo Chemical Company in Niihama,
Japan, recently blew up. The reason I'm telling you this
seemingly useless fact is that this little company is
responsible for producing over half of the epoxy resin used in
the manufacturing of computers (see, now it makes sense).
BM News
This explosion has resulted in large companies buying up vast
quantities of the available glue which is used to make cases for
microprocessors and chips, which has led to significant price
increases and many firms, including Silica Systems, have had to
raise their prices. Interesting, huh?
In last month's CU Amiga, there was an item regarding rumours
that US GOLD and OCEAN were both considering floating themselves
on the stockmarket. Both companies have denied the rumours, but
just think - if SAM owners everywhere bought truckloads and
truckloads of shares, we could try to get 51% of them and then
decide that OCEAN/US GOLD would from now on be producing only
SAM games. At the very least we could arrange for some licences
to be put out.
Sorry I've not been able to get anything more SAM-related, but
look, you had enough news last issue to last until January!
----------------------------------------------------------------
- Bits-Bytes-KiloBytes-MegaBytes-GigaBytes-TerraBytes and more -
----------------------- By Calvin Allett -----------------------
Computers don't think like us. In fact computers don't think at
all, at least not in our sense of the word, but when they do
"think" they think very fast. This is not just because they can
carry out millions of operations a second but because of the way
in which the information they have is stored.
Computers store ALL information they have in just one way: a 0
or a 1, or in other words an electrical impulse to be sent or
nothing to be sent. All those flash graphics, documents etc are
stored and manipulated in this one simple way.
The computer's memory is divided up into segments, the smallest
of which is a BIT (which stands for BInary digiT), a BIT on its
own, though, is practicly useless and that's why BITs are banded
together in groups of 8 to form what is known as a BYTE.
A BYTE can hold a character of information; a character can be a
letter such as the following:-
a b c e g i l n p q s u x z ; = - * T Q G H X .
A BYTE can also hold a number up to the value 255. When you
group 1024 BYTES together you get what is normally known as a K
which stands for KiloByte, group 1024 KiloBytes together and you
get a MegaByte and if you've got a 1024 MegaBytes then that
makes a GigaByte. 1024 GigaBytes make a TerraByte!
The reason that there are 1024 Bytes in a K, and 1024 K in a
MegaByte etc is because 1024 is two to the power of ten, or to
rephrase that, 2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2.
The abreviations you will come across are as follows:-
Bit-isn't abreviated : KiloBits-KBits
Byte-Isn't abreviated : MegaBits-MBits
KiloByte-K : MegaByte-Mb or "a Meg"
GigaByte-Gb : TerraByte-isn't abreviated
You may also see the letters GIGO , this isn't an abreviation of
GigaByte however but refers to the term Garbage In Garbage Out.
Some other names which you might also come across are KiloBits
and MegaBits (as opposed to KiloBytes or MegaBytes), as there
are 8 Bits to a Byte you just divide the number by 8, these
terms are often used when talking about console cartridges so if
a Sega Megadrive games came on a 8 MegaBit cartridge it is
actually only 1 MegaByte.
Also there are Nybbles which consist of 4 Bits or rather half a
Byte, a Word which is 16 Bits or 2 Bytes and a Long Word which
is 32 Bits or 4 Bytes. You probably won't come across these ones
very often though (if ever!).
Nybble will sometimes be written Nibble.
Computers don't think like us because they don't actually think
at all. I've already said that but I didn't explain: all that
computers actually do is count, and you could go so far as to
say that all a computer can really do is tell the difference
between a 1 and a 0.
Unlike us computers don't count with a base ten number system
but with a base two system called Binary. In Binary the number 1
would look like this: 00000001 and the number 255 would look
like this: 11111111
In Binary each of the eight digits (which can be either a 1 or a
0) stand for a number between 1 and 128, below you can see what
each one represents.
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑
128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
I'll refer to the eight Bits as Bit 1 to 8, Bit 1 is the one at
the far left which has a value of 128, Bit 2 is the second from
the left and has a value of 64, etc and Bit 8 is the one at the
far right and has a value of 1.
So that is why the number 255 would look like 11111111, if you
wanted to express the number 32 then it would look like this:-
00100000 and 00001000 would mean 8.
What if you wanted a number other than 1,2,4,8,16,32,64 or 128?
If you wanted to express the number 3 then digits 7 and 8 would
be set because they have a value of 2 and 1 and 1+2=3, so it
would look like this:- 00000011
The number 11 would look like this:- 00001011 because digits 5,7
and 8 have the value's 8,2 and 1 and 8+2+1=11.
The number 65 would look like this:- 01000001 because digits 2
and 8 have the value's 64 and 1 and 64+1=65.
If all the digits are unset then the Byte has a value of 0 and
if all the digits are set then the Byte would look like this:-
11111111 and would have a value of 255 because
128+64+32+16+8+4+2+1=255 and thats why a Byte can only hold a
number up to 255.
Now you know why the biggest number that can be held in 8 Bits
is 255, but what if your dealing with say 16 Bits, let's see.
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑
32768 16384 8192 4096 2048 1024 512 256 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑
Bit 1 Bit 3 Bit 5 Bit 7 Bit 9 Bit 11 Bit 16
Above you can see all 16 Bits along with their values below
them. The Bits are numbered 1 to 16 from left to right. Some
people name them the other way round but it makes more sense to
name them in the direction we read.
So if you wanted to express (or hold) a number bigger than 255
then you would need more than 8 Bits of computer memory. If say
you wanted the number 256 then you would leave all Bits except
Bit 8 unset and set Bit 8 because as you can see Bit 8 is equal
to 256, the number would look like this:- 0000000100000000
If you wanted the number 257 then you would do the same except
you would also set Bit 16 so that it looked as follows:-
0000000100000001
Because there are 16 Bits with value's ranging from 1 to 32768
the biggest number we can hold is:-
32768+16384+8192+4096+2048+1024+512+256+128+64+32+16+8+4+2+1
=65535
Or another way to find find out the maximum value we can hold
would have been 2 to the power of 16 or should I say
2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2, which is 65536. You should take
note that when you're using 2 to the power of whatever, the
result is always 1 more than the maximum number you can have
with that many Bits, for example as I said before with 8 Bits
you can have a number up to 255, but if you use :-
2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2 you get the result 256. (256-1=255)
Onto colours now, you may have heard about 24-Bit colour or
similar but you may also not understand what this means, well if
you understood the last bit (which went on far to long, sorry!)
then you more or less understand it already.
1-Bit colour means that you can have two colours because the
Bit can either be set or unset (or a 1 or 0), with 2-Bit you can
have 4 colours, with 3-Bit you get 8 colours and so on.
The SAM Coupe can display 16 colours on screen so this means
that the SAM can display a 4-Bit screen, which means that for
every dot on the screen it takes 4 Bits of the computers memory.
The SAM displays a screen with 256 horizontal dots and 192
vertical dot so this means that there are 256*192=49152 dots
making up a Mode 4 screen, because it takes 4 Bits for each dot
and there are 8 Bits in a Byte this means you can store the
colours of 2 pixels (Picture Elements or dots on the screen) per
Byte so the screen takes up 49152/2 = 24576 Bytes which is about
24.5K
If a computer had an 8-Bit display then it would be able to
display 256 colours on screen at once.
The most colours that any computer is likely to display is
262144. One of the main reasons for this is because if you go
any higher then there wouldn't be enough dots on the screen to
be able to display the colours unless you had special equipment.
The very best graphics computers usually have 24-Bit colour.
These computers are the type normally used on the flashy
graphics animations used on TV etc. The problem with this amount
of colours though is that a single screen takes up hundreds,
even thousands of Kilobytes depending upon the resolution of the
screen so as well as the immense processing power that is needed
to flick through the frames storage also becomes a problem as
even most hard disk drives wouldn't be able to store many
frames.
Another thing as well as graphics that takes up a large amount
of memory is sound, at least it does when it is sampled from the
real world, you can use up over 100K for just a few seconds of
sound/music and if your sampling at a high quality in stereo
then you're talking MegaBytes of memory.
There is a way to compress sound though; sound squeezing chips
have been invented that can squeeze four times as much sound or
music onto a disc or into a computer than normally possible.
The chips do this by analysing the waveform of the music/sound
and doing two things, firstly they look at a section of the
music/sound and if two bits are the same then they only record
the first bit, if they are similar then the chips only record
the changes and secondly they examine the sound to determine
which sounds our ears won't be able to hear and so they don't
record these sounds.
Unfortunately these chips are yet to be used on a computer so
the memory problem is still a huge problem.
One answer is CD-ROM, or Compact Disc Read Only Memory. One
single CD can store up to around 650 MegaBytes of information.
As computers and consoles move over to CD instead of floppies
and cartridges, we'll see a wealth of amazing games and
applications using Full Motion Video (FMV) and lots of sampled
sound and music. Just imagine taking part in a game that looks
and sounds more like an interactive film!
The only possible thing that could be called a disadvantage with
CDs is that at the moment to the home user they are as their
name suggests - Read Only. This means that you can't save your
own work onto them, but this will help to combat software
piracy and the fact that a CD only costs about the same as a 3.5
inch disk and yet can store nearly a thousand times more
information more than makes up for that fact, when tapes were
around (along time ago in computing circles!) they didn't have a
very large capacity and were very slow, so when disk drives came
into common use people were both amazed and relieved, now with
CD's that amazement is pouring over people again and yet there
is something that's potentially better than CD's and has been
around for over 5 years!
The "things" I am referring to are DATs. DAT stands for Digital
Audio Tapes. These tapes are half the size of normal tapes and
can hold 1.2 GigaBytes (although I think someone has just found
a way to increase it to 2.5). That's as much information as
about 2 (or 4 if the capacity is 2.5 Gb's) CDs or over 3000 3.5
inch floppy disks!
What's more is that as well as being able to read data from them
you can save data onto them. Unfortunately DATs haven't caught
on as well as they should have.
With DATs the data is recorded on a helical scan basis, laying
tracks across the tape using a rapidly rotating recording head.
The digital (rather than analogue wich is how conventional tapes
work) format eliminates unwanted noise and when used for music
offers frequency and dynamic ranges greater than a CD!
There are many formats of storage such as Floppy Disks, CDs,
Hard Drives, Optical Drives, DATs, the list is endless but with
computers' graphics taking up more memory all the time and with
games getting constantly bigger, one medium will have to win the
battle and the only one's which we can really rule out are
floppy disks and Hard Drives.
Nobody knows what kind of computer equipment we'll be using in
ten years time but one thing's for sure: it sure is fun thinking
about it! Ten years ago what were the graphics like? What was
the sound like? What was the loading like!? Answer these and
then marvel at the future.
BM Me Adding My Tuppence-Worth
Thanks for the article Calvin. I did my Higher Computing
investigation on state-of-the-art graphics, and I can tell you
that describing the theory behind bitmaps and 24-BIT colour in
under about three thousand words not an easy task!
A couple of extra comments; the reason for people using 18- as
opposed to 24-BIT colour is more to do with speed and storage
than simply the number of dots on a screen. Also, it's worth
pointint out that 24-BIT colour allows 16.8 million individual
colours; the human eye can only differentiate between about 12
or 13 million, so 24-BIT colour covers the entire spectrum as
far as humans are concerned. For this reason, 24-BIT colour is
often called truecolour. In case anybody is interested, a single
Coupe screen, if truecolour were implemented in Mode 4, would
take up 144K. Try loading THAT from a tape!
One last thing; hard drives may be a little old-fashioned, but
until some form of writable optical medium becomes widely
available I can't see them becoming less popular at all.
BM E-Tracker Event
Here's something for those of you who were sensible enough to
buy E-Tracker. Basically we'd like to get some kind of "special"
E-Tunes one month which features nothing but cover versions. So
far we've all heard Craig Turberfield's superb rendition of
Genesis' "I Can't Dance" (if you haven't heard this tune yet,
you can find it on the Pot Noodle demo this very issue) and
Zoe's "Sunshine On A Rainy Day", and there's even a Star Trek
tune in this month's E-Tunes.
If you've composed a cover version of a song that you think
would set the ears of Coupe owners alight (!) please send it in,
or if you think you know of a classic tune that's just begging
to be Coupified, have a go! The only thing I would ask is that
you supply the name of the original artist and the song title
with your tune because there are few things more annoying than
recognising a tune but not being able to put a name to it.
Note: any covers of indie or metal songs will probably be given
preferential treatment!
BM Disc Contents
And you thought I'd forgotten. Actually I had, but came to my
senses in the nick of time.
AXEL F. Yes okay, so it is THAT tune again. I doubt you've ever
heard it quite like this though! Thanks to Stefan Drissen for
converting this one.
POT NOODLE. Who remembers the Fish and Chips Demo then? Good
wasn't it? Well, in another trip down junk-food lane, Electron
Affinity has returned! And in a decidedly scary twist of fate, I
had a pot noodle for lunch this very day! Doo do doo doo, doo do
doo doo... (that's the theme from The Twilight Zone, for those
of you with no musical ability)
Steve Taylor has put together a small demo of DRIVER, his WIMP
system. More of a selection of screen shots than an actual demo,
I can assure you that this will still have you dribbling down
your chin in excitement!
BM Disc Contents
MAZE is a wonderful little game by Paul Horridge in which you
can pretend to be stuck down at Hampton court. It is a maze
game, something which many of you would have guessed by the
title, and it's in 3D, and it's in machine code, and it's fast.
Not just fast, in fact, but FAST!! There is a map facility which
costs you 20 moves a time, and the best I've ever done is 51
moves. You'll love this!
Not content with filling up most of the disc with his Driver
demo, Steve Taylor's also prepared what could well be his
longest machine code article yet! Or maybe not. I never read it,
so I can't really say! Well. That's not entirely true. I mean, I
do go through it to make sure that he's not started putting
satanic messages or anything in the column, but I don't know the
first thing about machine code and part 26 of a tutorial isn't
the best place to start.
Next is a playable demo of THE WITCHING HOUR by John Vincent.
Pretty obvious, really.
BM Disc Contents
Chris White concludes his SPACE INVADERS thing, and ends it with
a threat to write about DOS commands in machine code! Come on
Chris - how about something easier, like solving all the East
European conflicts going on at the moment in one fell swoop?
PODPERSONS FROM MARS is another converted Speccy demo, which
everybody claims is a waste of the SAM's capabilities but which
we all really love to see. Oh, and guess who converted it? Yes
it was Stefan Drissen, actually. How did you know that?
BITS N BOBS makes a comeback, and has a Diary program by Paul
Crompton, a Rainbow maker by Ben Wyatt, a couple of card games
by Paul Walker, and an E-Tune player by me. The reason I did
another E-Tune player when we've already got an excellent Stefan
Drissen one is that this new one lets you choose the filename of
the tune to be played.
BM Credits
Editor : Brian McConnell
Thanks to :
Stefan Drissen\ Robert Pain
Steve Taylor \ for a change! John Hutchings
Andy Monk / John Vincent
Chris White / Ben Wyatt
Electron Affinity Paul Walker
Paul Crompton Bunj Wobl
Calvin Allett D Simmonds
Pauli Lindgren Paul Horridge
Cheques payable to:
FRED Publishing, [redacted]
[redacted]
>>> Music and Comics! >>>
BM Music Section
Having eased up on the old CD buying for the first half of the
year, I haven't had many albums to review. This month though,
we've got four little beauties for ya. And here they are:
Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine
Sven Vath - Accident in Paradise
Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
Jesus And Mary Chain - Sound of Speed
I have got another couple of new albums, but I'm going to save
them for next issue.
A quick "Hello" to everyone who is going to / was at (depending
on the release date of this issue!) the Smashing Pumpkins
concert in Glasgow. I will be there, and it will be great. A
review, of course, next issue.
BM Rage Against The Machine
This is actually quite an old album now. February or something
it came out, wasn't it? It's an album that I've never gotten
around to buying until now, anyway. You'll probably have heard
the best track on the CD, Killing In The Name, and the second
best one, Bombtrack is apparently also now a single. There are
10 songs altogether, so we're talking about a 40-50 minute thing
(I can't be bothered checking exactly. Long enough though).
The music is very "different" to say the least. I've heard them
described as an angrier, heavier Red Hot Chili Peppers, and also
as rap with guitars. Both are true, but not perfect
descriptions. Let's just say they could well be the natural
opposite of Ambient; this is an album with the calming effect of
anabolic steroids!
A good album, ideal for getting ready for a night out. Get's the
old adrenalin going nicely! 8 out of 10.
BM Sven Vath - Accident In Paradise
A bit of a gamble, folks. By now you should know that every so
often I like to just pick a CD on the strength of a review, a
recommendation or even because of one song which I've heard and
liked. This comes into the latter category; remember I mentioned
a video called 3-Lux 3 recently? Well, Sven Vath was responsible
for one of the best songs from that video so I bought the CD.
This has 9 tracks, and clocks in about the 60 minute mark.
Having said that, there are a couple of really turdy tracks
which are meant as some sort of joke, I think. The "proper",
ambient tracks last about 50 minutes though, which is fine. And
yes, you did hear the word ambient there. Caravan of Emotion and
L'Esperanca are two of the very finest ambient tracks you will
ever hear; if you want to know why ambient music is becoming so
popular, these two will explain that. There are a couple of
tracks which really don't fit onto this CD at all well. The
title track, for example, is a pretty hard core techno thing,
and there are some very strange bits in it - a track whose
bassline is a bloke snoring! But get this anyway. 9 out of 10.
BM JAMC - Sound of Speed
This isn't really a proper album, because it contains mainly
B-sides, covers and remixes. There are new songs in it though,
and of the whole 20-track CD I must admit there were only about
3 which I'd already heard, and even those had been altered
pretty drastically. The opener, and also a single which got into
the charts for about a week, "Snakedriver", is excellent.
This lasts about 70 minutes, and considering the low price tag,
value for money is a phrase which leaps readily to mind. The
first couple of times I listened to this I thought that the JAMC
had finally run out of ideas, but now that I'm more used to it,
I'd have to say that this is probably as good as any of their
material, which I suppose is a compliment or an insult depending
on what you feel about the band. The "star" of the CD could well
be a cover of "My Girl" - and yes, I do mean THAT My Girl!
There're also covers of Leonard Cohen and Elvis (!) songs!
Overall, I'm pretty happy with this CD, even though it's
nothing really new. 8 out of 10.
BM Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
You all know that the Pumkins are playing the Barrowlands on
18th September (and I'm going!) so I won't tell you that again.
What I WILL tell you is that this is one superb album. I'd say
that it's much better than Gish. It's got 13 tracks, and it's
pretty long, which is what I like to see when I fork out £13 for
a CD.
The opening track, "Cherub Rock", is sheer class. It reminds me
of My Bloody Valentine somehow, but it's much less hard on the
ear (unless of course you have the volume up too high, in which
case it's downright painful!). "Today" is also fantastic. From
here, the pace of the CD falls quite dramatically, but the
tunes, if anything, improve. There are about 4 tracks on this
which could contend for "Emotional Song of the Year" were there
such an award. Everything finishes on a nice happy note though,
with a harmony-drenched ditty.
Album of the Year? Very possibly. 9 out of 10.
BW Bunj Wobl's Comic Spot
Welcome Samsters! Bunj Wobl here, reporting on the latest
happenings on the comics scene. I had the idea to do this when
there were ideas of book reviews floating around Fred. Well, I
wrote to the deity of Fred himself and put the idea forward.
"We'd be grateful for any comic articles you write" the great
one replied, so here I be.
HOLD ON A MINUTE! Aren't comics only for people under four foot
tall? (No offence to little people out there, I'm referring to
the younger generation known commonly as children) Well, kind
of. Comics books were originally created for children in the
form of a simple story accompanied by lots of pictures to keep
the child entertained. Some comic books about now are still
aimed at the same market of young children, but you may be
surprised to hear that a large majority of comics are not made
purely for the amusement of children.
There are some comics that I can't even buy. When I was lucky
enough to go to America I was in a comic shop, looking around,
and then the manager started shouting at me that the isle I was
in was for people aged 18 and over only. Extreme embarrasment!
Pornographic comics! Don't worry, the comics mentioned here are
suitable for people under 18 as well as above.
The comics business around the world is extremely large. Comics
are extremely collectable and enjoyed by all age ranges. In
Japan comics have been accepted as a medium for all ages and are
as commonly read on the subway by businessmen as papers are!
The comics that will be referred to here will not generally be
Japanese comics, or even British comics. The biggest selling
comics in this country come from America. These are also the
most collectable here.
The four largest comic manufacturers in America are Marvel, D.C,
Image and Valiant. For the past thirty years or so, the comic
book companies have been split into Marvel, D.C. and independant
companies.
That is until recently, Marvel and D.C. have dominated the
comics scene with no other company coming anywhere close to
them. However, two independants, Valiant and Image have grown to
such proportions that in many peoples eyes, these two companies
can no longer be classed as independant. Latest figures show
that Image comics is now actually selling more comics than D.C,
putting D.C. comics in third place, the lowest they have ever
been (I think!).
There are many shops around Britain that sell only comics,
recent and back issues of many titles from many comic
manufacturers. Regular comic marts are also held which, in my
opinion, are the best way to get hold of old comics. There are
also mail order companies that deal solely with comics and
related merchandise.
NOW ON TO THE COMICS THEMSELVES...
The quality of comics has greatly improved, with the most
noticeable being the art. Artists such as Todd McFarlane and
Dale Keown (my favourite) create images which are truly amazing.
You may think that comics are made by an artist and a writer.
Nope. Usually there will be a writer, penciller, inker,
coulourist and letterer along with various editors.
The best selling comics have comic "univereses" that contain
many super heroes and villains, set at the present time, on the
planet Earth. I have noticed that generally, a comic that is set
in the future, or on another planet does not sell as well.
The largest comic universe is the Marvel universe, containg
characters such as Spiderman, The Hulk, Captain America, The
Fantasic Four, Iron Man, The X-Men, The Avengers and Daredevil.
All of these characters/teams have been well established and are
among the oldest in the Marvel universe. (By the way, I missed
out Thor.)
D.C. have characters such as Batman, Superman, The Flash etc
etc. I don't like D.C, so I'm not that knowledgable about the
D.C. universe.
If you don't know much about comics, then you won't know any of
the characters in the Image or Valiant universes. Image has
characters such as Spawn, Pitt, Youngblood, Savage Dragon, The
Maxx, Wild CATS, Brigade, Supreme and Shadow Hawk.
The Valiant universe has been constructed very cleverly, with
characters united on Earth at the present time by an event
called "Unity". The characters in the Valiant universe include
Solar, Magnus, Turok, Shadowman, Bloodshot, Rai, X-O Manowar,
Archer & Armstrong, Eternal Warrior and HARD Corps.
Each universe is separate from each other, with characters from
each universe staying in their own universe. For example you
won't see Spiderman in a Superman comic. Or will you? Sometimes
companies will get together and decide it would be a good idea
to use a character from one universe in another, such as
Spiderman with Superman (from the Marvel and D.C. universe).
Because each universe is completely different there has to be
some strange explanation as to why a character from one universe
is in another.
This can be simply explained if a nexus were to engulf a
parallel world, creating an alternate dimension through which
each astral body can co-exist in a multiverse. Simple eh? Why
don't you try it one day!
Well, that's my explanation of all you need to know about
comics. If you out there in the parallel univere of SAMdom want
me to do a comic spot again, I'll do an in-depth article into
one of the companies, or the history of comics.
Don't think it's over yet. The main article is finished, but
there's some comic reviews to follow...
Once a month I travel to Birmingham to buy my comics. Here are
some reviews of the comics that I bought (31/7/93)
SECRET WEAPONS no.2. (Valiant) app £1.60.
Allinces part two. The story that began in no.1 concludes here.
An excellent, enjoyable comic, teaming up characters from the
Valiant universe. If you can find no.1, It's an excellent
introduction to the Valiant universe. 7/10
CEREBUS no.0. (Aardvark Vanheim) £1.25.
My first Cerebus comic from the independant company. A black and
white comic featuring an aardvark called Cerebus. Contains three
stories. A funny, weird comic, not the best comic to buy if you
haven't bought any before, but an excellent introduction to
Cerebus the Aardvark. 6/10
SILVER SURFER no.83. (Marvel) app 85p.
The Surfer has an all out battle with a possesed fiery dude
called Firelord. Bit of a disappointment to a usually excellent
title. The guest penciller, Cully Hamner, doesn't really handle
the book that well, I just hope that Ron Lim, the usual artist
is back for the next issue. 4/10
X-MEN no.22. (Marvel) app 85p.
There are two Psylockes (a rather fit member of the X-Men) in
this truly confusing conclusion when we find out the truth about
Psylocke. A bit of a disappointing end, I was expecting a bit
more in a more convincing way. 5/10
THE INCREDIBLE HULK no.408. (Marvel) app 85p.
Here's a comic I bought at the end of June, I must have just
missed no.409, but because the Hulk is one of the best comics on
the market, here's a review of no.408:
The Hulk's in Loch Ness, Scotland where he has a final showdown
with a weird type bloke thingy. Peter David, the best writer in
comics at the moment has written the Hulk for some time now and
comes up with some truly amazing stories. This is one of them.
He's brought back a big bad dude called Madman. Now there's one
hell of a funky big bad dude. To wrap it up, Gary Frank is the
artist, and I think he's one of the best around (though nobody
else has noticed this yet). Past issues have been better, but
it's still a truly amazing, or rather Incredible comic. 8/10
WILDCATS TRILOGY no.1. (Image) app £1.70.
The premiere issue gets off to a pretty good start. Grifter
falls into a trap set by Coda. That's it. Sounds a bit crap
really, doesn't it? Well, it is a bit better that. Written by
Dafydd Wyn, from Wales no less, and Brandon Choi (Co-creator of
WildCATs with Jim Lee) who make the book interesting and full of
action. The art by Jae Lee...
Hmmm, I don't know, I think Jae Lee is a bit over-hyped. 7/10
YOUNGBLOOD STRIKEFILE no.2. (Image) app £1.70.
Two solo stories of characters from the team called Youngblood.
This is undoubtably the best Youngblood title around.
The first story centres around Die Hard. This is an all action
story as Die Hard fights through the Cyberdata defence systems
and finally confronts "Super Patriot". Truly amazing art from
Rob Liefeld. Pretty funky.
The second story centres around Chapel. Not much happens, but
it's still O.K. Art by Jae Lee...Hmmm, I still don't know what
to think of him.
Youngblood Strikefile no.1 was better, but it's still good. 7/10
SPAWN no.12. (Image) app £1.40.
Todd McFarlane (Creator/Artist) starts writing again after a
line of guest writers. More about Spawns past is uncovered and
in the final panel of the book we find out who killed him (he's
kind of dead you see). Interesting, but perhaps only to people
who have knowledge of past books.
Todd Mcfarlane produces artwork that most people say is the best
in comics at the moment, and he can actually write pretty well
aswell. If you can, try to find Spawn no.11, or even 10, they're
a better starting point. Always a brilliant book. 7/10
PITT no.2. (Image) app £1.40.
This book is supposed to be monthly (as most are), but issue 1
came out over six months ago. This wait really pissed me off.
Was it worth the wait? Well, is anything worth that wait? This
is a brilliant book though. Drawn by Dale Keown, who I think is
the best in comics produces good artwork here, but perhaps not
as good as in issue 1. The story however is an improvement on
issue 1 and looks like it is going to get pretty interesting.
There are plenty of action scenes as some super-dudes try to
kill Pitt, but of course they can't, even having half of his
face blasted off doesn't bother this bloke. We learn more about
Pitt here, in this second issue which is equally as good as the
first (which I bought 10 copies of!). 9/10
DEATHMATE PROLOGUE (Image and Valiant) app £2.00.
The first of six books that completely cross over the Image and
Valiat universes. This is undoubtably the biggest crossover for
a long time. The first chapter has Solar (Valiant) going off to
explore other planes of reality. In a dimension between real and
unreal he encounters Void (Image), falls in love with her and
upon consumating, their combines energies fuse and unwrap the
fabric of time, bringing the Image and Valiant universes
together. The second chapter shows team ups of characters from
the Image and Valiant universe, including the Geomancer, Geoff
(Valiant) and Prophet (Image) who are the only two who know what
is going on.
Pretty good book with great art in part two by Rob Liefeld and
an amazing cover by Jim Lee. Might be a bit confusing to people
who don't know anything about the Valiant or Image universe
though. 8/10
DEATHMATE YELLOW (Image and Valiant) app £3.50.
One of the four main books didn't do that much for me. Four
stories in a 48 page comic. All of them with WildCATs (Image)
with characters from the Valiant universe.
Published by Valiant, the artwork isn't that good and the
stories are a bit thin, but interesting in parts. Again, would
be confusing to anyone who doesn't know about the Image or
Valiant universe. 4/10
That concludes the comic reviews. Just before I go, I'd like to
mention a magazine called Comics International. It's a monthly
"comic newspaper" containing news and articles on the latest
happenings in the comics industry. It's only 50p and I advise
anyone to go to a comic shop and buy one.
If Fred would like me to do another article on comics, I would
be happy to. I promise that If I do, it will be shorter!
Hah-Fwibble.
Bunj Wobl.
Thanks, erm, Bunj. Please, do write us some more - I can
actually see myself becoming quite interested in comics now! BM
Letters & Reviews
Letter from Paul Walker
Dear Brian/Colin,
Hello! Firstly, can you please send me Fred 36, as (if you
remember) I sent five pounds to you to buy Freds 34 and 35
asking if you could keep the pound change. I've received the
West Coast Mailshot, where it says that Fred 36 will only be a
pound, or free if I send you a disk.
Right, that's got that out of the way. In the letters section of
Fred 35, someone wrote in asking if there was a disk of all the
Etunes. To save you (most of!) the bother, I've enclosed a disk
with all the Etunes from Fred 28 to Fred 35. I haven't got the
others yet, so you can either send them to me, or do it your
self. Can I please have my disk back, though!
Also on the disk is an Addressbook program, and a Disk Manager,
although I feel that's somewhat redundant after Cyclops. They
both need the bugs working out of them, but I'll do that, if you
like them - I thought I'd see what you thought of them before I
put in the time (lazy aren't I!).
Letter from Paul Walker
On the subject of piracy - what would happen if someone had
accepted pirated disks of someone else, but later told FAST
about them? Would the informer get fined as well, or just have
to wipe the disks/buy the originals?
I would like to volunteer to review any SAM packages you
want reviewing, if you would like me to. I'm not fussy - I don't
mind which sort it is! I'd quite like to review WaterWorks,
though.
To Brian - you've got good taste in music! Do you like REM,
and My Bloody Valentine as well? I've got several books I could
review for you if you want, and some music as well.
Paul Walker
BM Reply to Paul Walker
Thanks for compiling the disc full of E-Tunes, although I must
confess I don't have the vaguest idea of what to do with them! I
don't know how many people would be interested in an entire disc
full of songs, but if those of you who would want such a disc
write and tell us, we'll get something sorted out.
If you get rid of all your pirate software then you can't be
prosecuted. That's all there is to it. I can't see FAST
attempting to prosecute an informer, although they probably
could if they wanted to. As piracy is already killing the Amiga,
and isn't exactly helping the SAM to flourish, I'd suggest that
everybody reading this replaces their pirate software with the
real thing as soon as possible.
By all means, please do finish your programs; I'm sure we can
squeeze them on somehow! The same applies to your book and music
reviews (ie please, do write 'em!). Finally, I do like MBV but
not REM.
- BRIAN
Letter from Stefan Drissen
Stefan Drissen (055443 - how about increasing the 43?)
[redacted]
28 July 1993
Hi there Colin and Brian or Brian and Colin,
First of all happy third birthday to you Colin! (Ha, for FRED
that is (I bet this is NOT the first time you have heard this!))
Please find enclosed a disc loaded with some Spectrum demo
conversions, the reason for this is that my letter on FRED 33
requesting demos did prompt Nigel French to send me two discs
full of Spectrum demos.
The Sample Tracker demo really is impressive and should not be
withheld from the SAM public.
Letter from Stefan Drissen
If you think The Lyra II is too big to include on Fred you could
always split it up over two (or more) issues. A lot of the
smaller Spectrum demos should make rather good space fillers
though.
FRED 35 was rather good, I only missed some real E-Tracker
tunes, Bub was excellent, Cutey was cute (good to see Axe back)
and the Turbo Worm is the best programmed worm yet (but please
no more worms or I'll have to write some kind of Centipede
program to kill them all). Steve Taylor's "Driver" sounds very
promising (I suppose it's pointless continuing my work on SAM
Windows), will it be released on FRED?
I would now like to ask for a "free" piece of software, for my
contributions: E-Tune player, ST->ET converter and Soundtrack
IV, what I had in mind was the "MIDI Sequencer", if anything
else of mine is used in the near future I would like "Days of
Sorcery".
Letter from Stefan Drissen
By the way, has my "ST->ET converter" automatically been entered
into the utility competition? Or is everything that has been
included on FRED disqualified?
Well, that's all for now, looking forward to FRED 36 (why do you
always hype up the news so much?)
Happy third birthday,
Stefan Drissen
BM Reply to Stefan Drissen
Stefan did not write in late, for those of you who are
wondering, it's just that we didn't include the letter until
this month. Sorry about that Stefan, but I suspect you're
getting used to it...
I think that disc of converted Spectrum things will help us
fill up a good few issues. The only thing is, the Lyra II demo
didn't work. This probably has something to do with the fact
that the BASIC loader didn't recognise the variable "speccy$" at
line 20.
I can safely say that the public will soon be thrilled by the
sampled music - we've included Axel F this issue, and the other
ones will follow soon.
Much as we'd like to include Steve's Driver thing on FRED, we
can't because he's already signed up to Revelation. Or
something. Every single game/utility we received was entered in
the FRED competition. We haven't yet decided on winners though.
Letter from G Robson
Dear Brian,
Many thanks for your information re copying Etracker music from
FRED discs. I am happy to say that I have managed to collect so
far, some 34 examples, and as you suggested, called them "E1" to
"E34". Now may I once again prevail on your expertise, by asking
if there is any way of selecting one individual tune to play? At
present, I can change each tune by pressing the SPACE bar, but
they will only run in the sequence they are saved in. Thus,
should I wish to play "E34" I have to go through 33 SPACE
presses to get there! I feel sure that there must be some way of
selecting the individual tune required by altering the E-Basic
program somehow, but I'm afraid that it is beyond my meagre
programming capabilities. Hope you can help me once again,
George Robson
BM Reply to G Robson
Indeed we can help out! In the Bits N Bobs section of this very
issue, you will find an E-Tune player which allows you to enter
the name of a file, and then it'll load that tune and play it.
It is nowhere near as polished as Stefan Drissen's player, but
it does what it needs to do.
To put this on your collection, copy the file called "Tune_play"
from this disc, and those days of having to press the SPACE bar
umpteen times will very quickly become a distant memory!
- BRIAN
Letter from Craig Harris
Dear FRED,
After scanningg over the latest issue of FRED these few words
sprung to my mind, " !" That's right - I was
speechless. Then Shock! Horror! Aaarrgghhh! What's this! A small
piece of paper declaring the fact that my subscription has run
out. RAN OUT OF WHAT? Of course this came as a shock so I
immediately called my best friend and sidekick... Klato. Klato
as usual smashed through my door a few seconds later.
"Yaaaaah!" he screamed, blood pouring from his face. I told him
not to header the door but still he persists. Once I had
repaired his face I told him the horrific news that my FRED
subscription had run away. He stepped back, agast at such a
tragedy; this however was a very bad move as he fell out of my
open window and plummeted four stories (an amazing feat
considering I live in a 2-floored house). Unfortunately I had to
rush him to hospital which severely dented the time I had to
look for my FRED subscription as the next issue was due out in
Letter from Craig Harris
August.
I had been searching for days without Luck (we had had an
argument a few days before and he wasn't speaking to me) when it
hit me - a large monstrosity with a face like the back of a bus.
Actually, it was the back of a bus; the driver backed into my
house thinking it was the bus depot. I rescued my SAM just
before the black rubber of a "Good Beer" radial bus tyre
squashed it into oblivion.
As I sat there cuddling my SAM and trying to bring it out of
shock I realised that all was not lost as the nice people at
"FRED Subscriptions" give a service to restore run out subs...
PS This letter was written on the Secretary and I have a
complaint to make about the manual for this wonderful word-
procesor. That's right, a COMPLAINT! Under the description of
how to use the TAB feature, the author (Adrian Parker) gives a
long description on how to find the bloody key.
Letter from Craig Harris
This is F*$#*& pointless. He babbles on about a double sized key
below the ESCAPE button. Does he think that we're all stupid or
maybe blind? The TAB key which he thinks is so difficult to
find has TAB printed on it in block capitals!
Phew! Now that I have gotten that off my chest I would just like
to say that I think that you at FRED Publishing are doing a
magnificant job. I would also like to say how much I liked the
menus with music on them; the inclusion of music on the menu
screen improves the mag ten-fold.
Well, that's it. All that's left to say is that I will not be
held responsible for the drivel at the start of this letter.
BM Reply to Craig Harris
Eh!?! - BRIAN
Letter from Robert Pain
Dear Brian,
Will this letter mark my fifth appearance in FRED? I wonder.
Firstly I must say thanks for printing my previous letter, but
why did you exclude it from one issue only to print it the
next? Thanks for the answer to the BASIC question, I must
confess that page 178 was the last place I would have looked for
such info (well, almost last, anyway).
Now a question about Waterworks. Reading back through FRED back
issues I saw the password for level 21, and I thought, "Why is
there a level 21 in a 20 level game?" Also, is level 21 the
final level, or are there more?
Now a note to readers about Wop Gamma: you've read the reviews
and think it MIGHT be worth buying; I say don't hesitate - buy
it now, it's AMAZING! I don't want to sound like Mr High and
Mighty, but I've just completed it! It took me only two weeks (I
know that isn't too quick but it's good none-the-less).
Letter from Robert Pain
I could give a list of passwords, but I won't, so there!
You asked me what printer I use - a 600dpi laser of course! No,
seriously, I actually use an electronic typewriter.
Finally, I wish to know if you are a natural computer artist, or
did you read some book or article etc. to improve your
knowledge? If so, what? I can't wait for the big licence news! I
wonder if it begins with an "L"....
BM Reply to Robert Pain
Why did we exclude your letter one month only to use it the
next? This was obviously for your own benefit - it is a well
known fact in computing circles that to make four successive
appearances in the Letters section of any disc magazine is to
incur the Curse of the God of Computers (Fred Harris, off "Micro
Live"). You should therefore be thanking us. (The curse
obviously is not applicable to magazine editors, otherwise I'd
have sold my SAM and Amiga and bought a BBC B long ago...)
Waterworks is not a twenty level game; there are 25 levels.
Remember kids - the sequel to Waterworks will be out before too
long!
If you want to be good at computer graphics, you do need a
little bit of artistic ability, but even with a tiny bit of
ability you can get by. A lot of it's to do with knowing certain
techniques and "tricks" that can produce impressive results with
minimal effort. Using DPaint on the Amiga instead of Flash
doesn't hurt, either... - BRIAN
Letter from Douglas Murdoch
Dear Brian and Colin,
I would like to start by expressing my thanks for printing a
"certain" letter that put on my face an expression that can only
be described as "an expression that Brian wishes he could have
seen." Well Mr McConnell, I'm not taking this lying down - just
to prove how disgruntled I am, I'm going to re-subscribe to
FRED. So there. And let that be a lesson to you!
Okay, so it was a mildly amusing dig at me but it was a slight
exaggeration, I mean, sometimes I spend whole evenings away
from my SAM - and I don't even pine too much. To suggest that
I'm obsessive is just ridiculous...
Now onto some more (slightly) serious business; LEMMINGS? On the
SAM?! Yahoo and hurrah! (not to mention "What kept you?")
The next serious point is a little message for AXE: DON'T EVER
LEAVE THE SAM SCENE! (please).
Letter from Douglas Murdoch
Call me silly and hit me on the head with a large plastic
coconut but if somebody can write something as brilliant as
CUTEY and call it crap then we're talking about an excellent
programmer here.
And don't worry, I will indeed "get off my butt" and take Jill
out (seeing as she asked so nicely). I don't know how she
remembered the FRED address but it looks like she's got one over
on me (any ideas on how I can get my "dear beloved" back would
be greatly appreciated). In fact that's the second time Jill's
got me if you include the old "salt in the coffe" trick. Maybe
I'm just easy to "get" - somebody told me "gullible" had been
taken out of the dictionary and I asked why. Oh dear.
Before I waffle you all to death, here are a few questions:
1- Are there any plans for a sequel to Prince of Persia?
2- What did you think of the tape?
3- Have you heard (of) Teenage Fanlub?
Letter from Douglas Murdoch
Have a very happy birthday FRED, and may FRED magazine continue
to bring the best SAM news and reviews for centuries to come. Or
something.
Finally, my SAM actually has dinky little BLACK feet. Is that
weird? Have I been feeding mine the wrong food?
BM Reply to Douglas Murdoch
Readers who haven't the vaguest idea what Doug's letter was
about obviously missed the recent issue of FRED where we let
Doug's girlfriend get in a wee moan about the time he spends
with his SAM. Oh, how I do wish I'd seen that expression!
Colin and I are still reeling from that vicious bit of
retaliation - renewing subscriptions is possibly the only
effective means of hurting the FRED empire (it's lucky that
we're heavily into masochism, really).
BM Reply to Douglas Murdoch
I don't think Axe is still intending to leave the SAM; the leg-
irons we've got attaching him to it make escape very difficult
indeed.
There aren't any plans whatsoever for another PoP, but there
will be a new Lemonheads album out in the not too distant future
if that's any consolation.
The tape you sent was indeed smart, thanks. I did think about
going to see Teenage Fanclub live, but that's the week after the
Smashing Pumpkins concert and two concerts in the space of eight
days is pushing things a bit.
Black feet? Oh no!! Your SAM is the spawn of Satan! Quick, phone
a priest and get him to exorcise the evil fella before it
spreads! No, your SAM SHOULD be alright; just don't leave it
unattended for more than 12 hours at a time or I dread to think
what might happen.
- BRIAN
DL DAYS OF SORCERY
Review By D.Lewis
Well I must admit I've always prefered skill games to
adventures. In fact, the only adventure game I really liked was
on a CRASH disk years ago. Well, did Days Of Sorcery transform
me? Not really, no, but I don't regret buying it because even
though it's not my type of game its still fairly good.
The mode 4 graphics are quite good and they really do help
create the atmosphere of the game. The text which occupies the
bottom two thirds of the screen can be 32, 42 or 64 columns in
width and you can have it (oo-er free zone I'm afraid) in 19
fonts ready for use on loading. As you might expect pen and
paper colours can be changed to suit your TV or monitor.
Sound, as far as I can tell, is completely non-existent which is
a pity, but at least you can play it late at night. However
considering the guy you play lived in years gone by he certainly
DL D.O.S.
has a modern taste in MUSIC.
Well so far you're thinking, "Hmm fairly average game" but this
game does have one area in which it excels: playability. A great
deal of feeling has been put into the writing of the text in the
game along with just a tiny touch of humour. The game starts off
fairly straight-forward and draws you into the plot and setting;
when you're making progress the game really is quite addictive.
One of the main problems I find with adventure games is trying
to get the computer to do what you want. Most of them, unless
you type in the exact syntax, give you the annoying "I do not
understand" message; a reason my old Speccy joystick used to go
off the wall so often. Days Of Sorcery gets around this fairly
well and will even accept commands like "take book and fling
it." This is another factor with makes the playability so good.
Later on when the game started to get really hard it did tend to
give me the brick wall feeling, but like I say I prefer skill
games, and my SAM joystick is still in working order!
DL D.O.S.
The game editor, as well as what I've already mentioned, does
have a rather good ramsave option and you don't even need
Masterdos. The game also uses the extra memory on 512K SAMs to
load all the graphics into the memory on boot up, whilst 256K
SAMs have to load them in from disk as they are used (unless you
turn them off with the GRAPHICS command). Last but not least for
your tenner you get a disk and a 7 page manual which is OK but
doesn't give too much away.
Hardened adventure fans have met their match, normal adventure
fans will be hardened ones by the time they've completed it, and
first time adventure game players are in for some right
co-operation. But on the whole the game is quite good.
Graphics......78%
Sound..........5% (because of the main character's good taste)
Playability...87%
Lastability...95%
Difficulty....Well 'Ard!
OVERALL.......75%
DT The Witching Hour
£5.00(£4.50 to subbers)
512K only
Blimey, the population of the 'The Little Town by the Sea' are a
fickle bunch, aren't they? One minute they're threatening to
burn you at the stake for blighting crops and dancing skyclad,
but as soon as a demon army invades and kidnaps half the
townsfolk it's all "Please help us, we're terribly sorry we
blamed you for old Mrs Turnip's cow turning purple and saying
that black doesn't suit you. My, that's an attractive wart on
the end of your nose." Tsk,eh? And more fool you for agreeing.
So, as either Gretta the witch or Beardy the wizard you set out
to vanquish the evil demon master.
God, what horribly silly, cliched names. Look, for the sake of
my sanity, from here on in Gretta will be known as "Tanya" and
Beardy as "Evan". Far more sensible names, I hope you'll agree.
(And coincidentally the lead singers of "Belly" and "The
Lemonheads" respectively.)
DT Review of The Witching Hour
Right, on with the show.
As Tanya or Evan you must find this demon master blokey and
complain loudly in his general direction about the immorality of
kidnapping large numbers of people.
The actual hard bit is finding him. At least that would be the
hard bit if the game wasn't so pitifully easy, but it is, so it
isn't, if you see what I mean.
For those who don't know, "The Witching Hour" is a Dizzyesque
arcade adventure where you trudge around a flip screen map,
littered with objects, characters and various hazards to
overcome. A novel twist on this theme, which I haven't seen
before, is pulling down on the joystick to enter houses or walk
down paths. Unfortunately this feature is rarely used, which is
a shame, because as it is the map is disjointed and occasionally
downright silly.
DT Review of The Witching Hour
Used properly it would have made the game stand out from its
predecessors, but as it is it seems to have been added as an
afterthought. What a pity.
But The Witching Hour's main problem is that the puzzles have to
be logical, and from there it's just a short bus ride to
"blatantly obvious". I mean, if you come across, say, a troll
that complains about being hungry there's a fair old chance that
it would be a good idea to find it some food. (Other than
yourself,that is) This is the fault of the genre rather than the
programer, but the flimsy arcade element and pointlessly
generous time limit don't help.
Speaking of the programer, which I wasn't, but might well have
been, he goes by the name of David Vincent, and as far as I know
this is his first commercially released game. The graphics are
the work of the talented Neil Holmes, and there are a couple of
funky tunes by Craig "Planet Sweet" Turberfield (though absurdly
no in-game tune).
DT Review of The Witching Hour
Anyway, time for the summary bit. Despite its irritating plot,
daft character names and the complete absence of any hardness
level whatsoever, "The Witching Hour" still manages to be
strangely enjoyable. It has some clever use of animation, (Tanya
(or Evan) wobbles along most realistically), lovely, moody
graphics, some nice sound effects and buckets of smart touches,
such as the little introductory demo or the choice of
characters. I don't know why, but you just can't help enjoying
yourself. OK it's too easy, fair enough, it's written on
GAMESMASTER (and this does show on occasions), but it's fun,
it's sweet, and you can't take that away from it.(Oh,yeah?)
Overall:75%
Reviewed by David Tallerman
DN Review of The Witching Hour
NAME : THE WITCHING HOUR
PUBLISHER : FRED Publishing
PRICE : £4.99 (£4.50 to subscribers)
CONTACT : [redacted]
COMPATIBILITY : 512k Only
Review by Dean Nicholas
THE WITCHING HOUR is your everyday story of bad guy kidnapping
several people, and you have to get them back. In this case, the
bad guy is the evil Demon Master, who has come, on Hallow'een
night, and captured nearly all of the villagers from the little
town near the sea. You, as either Gretta the good witch or
Beardy the wizard, must destroy the Demon Master during the
witching hour otherwise all will be lost!
OK so the plot is nothing revolutionary. Neither, in fact, is
the game's style, but that doesn't mean that it is a bad game.
DN Review of The Witching Hour
It is an arcade adventure in the mould of Dizzy. This is the
second game of the genre on the SAM, the first being BOING! It
has many challenging puzzles to overcome, most of them quite
original and obvious but not so obvious that you would be able
to complete the game straight away.
This game is special in two ways. One - it is the first
commercially released game made using Gamesmaster. Two - it is
the SAM's first budget game. As a game, it represents
Gamesmaster very well.
The game is played by walking around the screens. You have 3
lives, and can carry 2 objects at a time. If you press the fire
button, then a little menu comes up on the right hand side of
the screen, from which you can pick up/drop/use/give objects or
talk to people. This is quite useful, as unlike adventure games
you don't have to type in the exact correct command, just USEing
an object does it all.
DN Review of Witching Hour
Graphically it is nicely presented, with colourful characters
and horribly cute ghosts (that kill you if you touch them).
Paths are a little confusing, as they don't seem to be there
until you accidentally enter them. However, overall quite good.
Sound. Oh dear me. Whereas before the game there is a nice,
spooky tune playing, as soon as you start the game this music
completely disappears. All the sound in the game is either a
dull thud when you enter the menu, or the sound of running water
(which sounds like a garbled message over a British Rail
announcer system). So, not very good at all, the sound.
Value for money is excellent. It is a budget game, but could
quite easily have been released as a full-pricer. It even has a
proper box, like the ones for Impatience and Dyzonium. Great
value for money.
Lastability isn't too hot, but it isn't too bad either. Within
about 3 hours of playing, I had completed 49% and I thought this
DN Review of Witching Hour
must be such an easy game, but now I am hardly progressing at
all. So, it should last bad gamesplayers quite a while, but good
arcade adventurers will finish it off pretty quickly.
Ratings:
GRAPHICS........... 77%
MUSIC/SOUND........ 20%
VALUE FOR MONEY.... 90%
LASTABILITY........ 75%
OVERALL............ 79%
This is a good game, and the price adds even more authority to
the fact that you should buy this game now!
DIY Space Invaders: MC Tutorial (Ctd.) End.
Well. This is the end of the Invaders game (after you have
installed this month source), but it may not be the end of this
extra M/C supplement by me. How would you all like to be able to
use SAMDOS/MASTERDOS for load/save/verify/read/write/directory
etc. - without having to return to BASIC! If you would, then
write to me at the address below and it shall be done. But back
to this month's source and it's all about the high score table.
This will include a ten entry high table, with a 29 character
name area, and also allows you to input your name by just typing
and not left/right method.
First off, I had better tell you what you need off the disk :
File name Discription
IN-SOURCE Comet source file (fifth and final installment)
Game Theory
-----------
Well it's part of the game and some people think a game without
a high score table is not worth playing (these people like to
show their friends how good they are at playing games).
To my high score stuff there are a few subroutines
(sort/print/input name, to name a few) which are used and could
be used for other purposes. Like the main sort, which could be
used to sort something else, or the input routine could be used
to input other text, say in a text editor. Only you can decide
the outcome of this.
Back to the theory at hand. As we have a high table of ten
entries, to make things a little simpler we will have a data
area capable of holding eleven entries. Why? I hear you cry.
Well, when we have reached at least the lowest entry, we put our
score into the eleventh entry and clear the name for that area.
Then we simply check that score against the one above (all will
make sense in the explanation. I hope).
Before we do the above we must check if our score is bigger than
the lowest, otherwise my HI.SORT routine will fail. If we have
not, then we just have to print the table.
The next thing we will need is a routine that will let us type
in our name (or anything else). This will have to display what
we are typing and store the characters in the name area. This
routine must not use ASCII characters, so that we can delete and
exit upon pressing return (it will use the READKEYBOARD routine
from issue 32).
Equates
-------
Well as last month's did not have any, this month has two.
MAX.SIZE is the number of characters in the name area of
the high score table
MAX.HIGH is the number of high score entries in the table
Main Area Source Examination
----------------------------
****************************************************************
To mix this month's source with the source you should have saved
last month, all you do is load in the source you have saved,
then merge in this month's source. Then find the label MERGER;
this will take you to the start of the merged source. Then
follow and act on the text messages there.
****************************************************************
Now this is going to be at times confusing, but I will do my
best to explain why I wrote the source like I did.
High.Check
----------
This is the entry point to test if we did get a score bigger
than the lowest high score entry.
First we set the LMPR to the current VMPR setting.
Then we test the game score to the high score entry number 10
(lowest high score).If no then go to NO.HIGHEST.
At this point we are on the high score table, so we must put our
score into high score 11 (extra high entry for sorting). Then
clear the name area for high score 11.
Then we call HISORT, after which we then print the new high
score table. Then setup the high score entry reached and print
that message and enter name message and show that screen.
Then we setup the INPUT.STRING vars to current high entry
screenxy maximum string length and the address to store the
input and call INPUT.STRING.
After returning from INPUT.STRING (return pressed) we then jump
to HIGH.FINISH.
Hisort
------
This is the main routine that starts at the bottom of the
high score table, and check's our score against each high score
untill we either :
Find a high entry that is bigger than our score
or
Reach the top of the high score table
This is done as follows:
First off, we have to setup the maximum high score entry (this
also acts as a high table position varable), then setup the
start address for checking (score at high).
Hisort Loop
-----------
First off we get the current high enter counter (REACHED) and
multiply by eight, then add this to the HIGH.TAB.ADR (see below
for explanation).
Then we get the address for the screenxy, name area and the
score area for that particular entry and store them for future
use. Then we get the address stored for the high entry to check,
and check it against the score entry. If smaller or equal then
goto GOT.HIGHEST
By getting here the score must be bigger than the high score
entry, so we swop the high score and high name with our blank
name and our score (as in move that high position down one line
and move our score up one line).
Then we get the address for the high entry and store them into
the score entry vars for rechecking on next loop.
Then we decrease the REACHED variable and if not zero (there is
no zero high score entry) then we goto HISORT LOOP.
GOT.HIGHEST
-----------
This is just a return but when we get here, we have got in vars
GAME.SCRXY the screen position to print our name, GAME.NAME the
high score memory location to store our name and REACHED hold
the number+1 of the position reached in the high table.
Sortit
------
This is a small subroutine which checks one string of numbers
(HL) against another string of numbers (DE), To see if one>other
(HL>DE). This does not have to be ASCII, numbers it could be
decimal numbers.
On entry, B is set to the number of digits to test (in our case
we only have a 7 digit score).
Then we test the contents of HL against the contents of DE for
the following :
IF (HL)=(DE) then EQUAL
IF (HL)<(DE) then SMALLER
IF (HL)>(DE) then BIGGER
EQUAL increase to next location and decrease B. If B=0 then
the two equal the same, so set A to zero
(score <= high) and return.
SMALLER set A to zero (score<=high) and return.
BIGGER set A to 1 (score>high) and return.
No.Highest
----------
This is jumped to if the score <= the lowest high score entry.
So all we do is print the high score and drop into HIGH.FINISH
High.Finish
-----------
Here we display "Press fire" message and wait for fire to be
pressed. Upon fire pressed then released we jump back to
FRONT.END.
High.Print
----------
This is the same as all the other prints, But explanation coming
up:
As always we set the opposite to VMPR low and clear. Then we
print the high-score Invaders sign. Then we print the high score
table (HIGH1 to HIGH10 messages).
Then we switch screens and set LMPR to VMPR, So we can see what
we are typing.
Input.String
------------
This is a complimentry routine for READKEYBOARD. What it simply
does is gets an ASCII code from READKEYBOARD, and if it's a
printable code (>=32 and <=127), it prints it to the screen at
LMPR and stores the code into a memory loaction. Heres how I did
it.
On Entry HL equals the screenxy co-ords for the left position to
start print at and BC equals the maximun characters aloud in the
string. These are stored into the INPUT.STRING vars.
Input.Loop
----------
In the input loop we wait for a frame flyback to occur (TV
raster line is at top of screen). Then we swop the cursor
character between chr$ 0 and chr$ 32 (XOR 32 does this), Then
print the cursor at the current xy position.
Then we wait for READKEYBOARD to return with a character other
than &FF (no key pressed), store the key vars and wait for you
to let go of the key (&FF from READKEYBOARD).
Then we restore the key codes and test for the following :
If the key is a return, goto INPUT.STRING.E
If the key is a delete, goto INPUT.DELETE
If the key code is less than 32 (we only want control codes for
return or delete), then goto INPUT.LOOP
Getting here we must have a printable ASCII code (we hope), so
first we must check to see if we have reached the maximun string
size. If yes goto INPUT.LOOP, otherwise we increase the string
size counter.
Then we get the ASCII code and print at currentxy position (this
will erase the cursor), and increase the xy by 3 bytes (next
screen location). Then we store the asci code into the memory
loaction and increase the memory address ready for next
character.
Then we goto INPUT.LOOP
Input.Delete
------------
This is jumped to when we have pressed the delete key, so first
off we must check if input count equals zero (at left edge of
input area). If yes goto INPUT.LOOP, else we decrease the input
count.
Then we print a space at the cursor position (delete cursor),
and decrease the screen xy by three (back space to last screen
position).
After that we decrease our memory address by three and store a
space at that loaction (erase ASCII from store area).
Then we goto INPUT.LOOP
Input.String.E
--------------
Upon pressing return we arrive here, and all we do is print a
space at the screenxy (delete cursor). Then return.
The last thing I will explain is the HIGH.TAB.ADR. This is
a table which looks something like this :
HIGH.TAB.ADR:
DEFW 0,0,0,0
DEFW SCR1,NAME1,SCORE1,0
DEFW SCR2,NAME2,SCORE2,0
DEFW SCR3,NAME3,SCORE3,0
DEFW SCR4,NAME4,SCORE4,0
ETC...
The first eight bytes are zeros because I will never get a high
position of zero in my sort routine. The last byte for each
entry is zero, as this enables me to multiple by 8 (ADD A,A 3
times), instead of multiplying by 6 (ADD A,A: LD C,A: ADD A,A:
ADD A,C).
The label SCRX points to the high score entryX start text
message line (which in my data holds the screen xy coord to
print the text message).
The label NAMEX points to the high score entryX name area (which
should be the start of the asci area for the name).
The label SCOREX points to the high score entryX score area
(which should be the start of the asci area for the score).
So, by getting the high score entry no 3, multiplying it by 8,
and adding it to the address of HIGH.TAB.ADR., we can get the
address to read the screenxy, followed by the address to start
poking the new name and followed by the start of the high score
for that entry number.
If you wish to increase the high table size then you will have
to change the MAX.HIGH equate to the number of entrys and add
the new addresses for those entrys.
The End
-------
Well I have really enjoyed doing this series of articles, and I
hope you have all learned from it. If you'd like any more
articles to appear in FRED then write to me with what you would
like to know and I will do my best to assist you (if I can).
My address is as follows :
Chris J. White,
[redacted]
So its bye for now, but it may not be bye for ever!
Chris White.