Fred 28

Issue 28

Magazine

BM             See FRED? That's YOU that is!!!!

...And what better way to start an issue than with a compliment,
heh  heh.  Ah  yes, the Christmas issue. Chances are that due to
our  new  duplicators  this  issue will have arrived sometime in
April  (1996),  but  never  mind; it is MEANT to be the December
1992 issue.

I  suppose you could call this issue my first ever "proper" one.
Much to Colin's relief I've finally started getting down to work
and actually compiling the disk instead of spending half an hour
per month writing junk like this!

We've had some very nice stuff sent in recently (and other stuff
which  we  kind of "dug up" after it had been sitting, brilliant
but  unnoticed  in the back of Colin's box of disks), but you're
going  to  have  to  wait at least a couple of minutes before we
tell you all about that lot.

In  the  meantime,  why  not  just  read  the rest of our little
Christmas gift... (Yes, FRED...).
BM                    A Word of Advice...

Colin  "Fuhrer"  Macdonald here has just ordered me to point out
that you, the reader, should always make cheques payable to FRED
Publishing.  Some people, you see, have been practising what can
only  be  called "creative cheque writing", and have been making
them  out  to  all sorts of strange companies like FRED Software
Ltd.,  and  Belgian  Massage  Inc., (okay, so the last one was a
joke. As far as I know, anyway).

Also, do not send cheques or disks or anything else to me, Brian
McConnell.   The FRED address is the same as it always has been,
and  for  the moment at least it's showing no signs of changing.
Maybe  when  the FRED empire runs to buying up the small town of
Dundee it will change slightly, but just now - no.

The  above  couple  of paragraphs were inspired by some innocent
enough  chap  who  sent  me  a  cheque. Not mentioning any names
though  (well,  we'll  maybe  tell  you  it  was somebody called
Graham...).

BM                            News

The  biggest  piece of news this month is that you don't have to
put  up  with a knackered SAM anymore!! (Although, if your SAM's
knackered I don't know how you're supposed to read this and find
out.  Hmmm).  Yes,  those  two faithful SAM people Adrian Parker
(from MGT, Blue Alpha, and SAMCo) and Mark Hall (from MGT, SAMCo
and  SAMTech)  have  joined  together and resurrected Blue Alpha
Electronics!  Already  in  operation, this "new" company can now
repair all those little problems you've been bothered by. Prices
for repairs are:-

SAM (not including disk drive) - £30
Interfaces                     - £18
Disk Drive                     - £18

If  your  disk  drive  is  unrepairable,  you  can get one for a
reduced  price. The quoted price of £30 for a SAM may be subject
to  an  additional  fee for expensive parts. I wonder if they've
got  a  little  blue  thing for the front of my disk drive? Mine
fell off when I dropped it on the floor a year or two ago...
BM                            News

Probably not. Hum. Anyway, the address to write to if you've got
some "functionally challenged" hardware is this:-

Blue Alpha Electronics
[redacted]               <-- the FRED management accept no
                             responsibility  for  injuries
                             incurred trying to  pronounce
                             this line...!

Anybody remember a loveable little game on the old Speccy called
Boulderdash?  If so, you'll surely be pleased to hear that a SAM
gamesimilar  to  this type is just about ready! At the moment it
goes  by  the name of "Wop Gamma" (this is just a working title,
apparently.  I  quite  like it though), and has 60 levels. There
are  over  a  dozen  E-Tracker tunes in the game, written by the
same bloke who did the amazing ones in this month's selection of
E-Tunes,  so  you  can  be sure of a good bit of music at least!
More on this next month when we'll try to get a review for you.

BM                            News

It's  been  rumoured  that  some  progress has been made by West
Coast  computers regarding the SAM. There still aren't any solid
details   yet,   but  keep  reading  FRED  to  find out!! In the
meantime  I suppose it's back to having fingers crossed (even if
it does make typing very difficult indeed...).

Remember  that  as  well  as  classy magazines and games you can
still buy hardware from FRED!

Something  else  you  should  definitely  make  an effort not to
forget  about  is the fact that you  can buy a number of special
packs  at  special  prices  as  long  as you send off your order
before 1993! The first price applies to FRED subbers, the second
applies to non-subbers, and the third is the RRP.

Puzzle Pack   - Impatience, TTLL, Pipemania     - £20, £25, £30
Creation Pack - Etracker, Gamesmaster           - £40, £50, £55
Variety Pack  - Impatience, Parallax, FREDatives- £20, £25, £30

BM                            News

Even  more  Blue  Alpha  news now. We would have put it with the
other  bit  of  BA  news, but that called for a slight amount of
organisational  skills  so  it's,  well, here. But to the point.
Blue  Alpha  are  thinking  of carrying out a number of hardware
projects. None of them are certain yet, and none of them will be
out  until  well into '93, but if you could write to them at the
address  given  a  few  pages back and say which item you'd most
appreciate,  it  would  be  a  great  help.  The  things they're
thinking of doing are:-

Accelerator board (possibly 24MHz)
Hard drive
Video Digitiser
Modem

I  think  I'd  personally  go  for either the accelerator or the
modem (although Them That Pay the Phone Bill might not agree too
strongly with that second choice).

BM                          Puzzles

It's  been ages since we had any puzzles, so here's a little one
I found the other day...

At  a fair, if you throw 7 dice and get 7 sixes, you win a mini.
Two  boys  go up and work out whether to have a shot or not. The
first  says  you'll  almost  always  get  just  1  six. How many
possible outcomes are there, and how many give 1 six?

The  sender of the first correct answer wins nothing whatsoever,
but  will  get a mention in the next FRED (if anybody bothers to
work it out).

HINT:  Don't  try  to simply write down all the combinations. It
might take a while...


If  anybody  else feels like inventing puzzles of any sort, send
'em in and who knows? We might even use them!

BM                       Disc Contents

First  of  all  comes  "Fish Demo" by a group calling themselves
Electron  Affinity.   A  three  part  thing,  this demo features
amongst other things a lovely little rendition of that old chart
song  "Sunshine  on  a Rainy Day" by Zoe (who wasn't a bimbo. Of
course not...).

Next  is  a  Lemmings  demo,  written  by Ian "AXE" Slavin. This
features  lots  of  little Lemmings roaming all over the screen.
Not bad at all!

The first of our games this month is called Bong! and comes from
BTB.  The  presentation  isn't  too  hot  but the game itself is
great.  It  needs at least one friend to play, which I hope most
of you can manage to find somewhere (and not the blow-up variety
Colin,  I'm  afraid).  What  happens  is  this:  each  player is
assigned  his  own  button to press. A sum of money is displayed
onscreen,  and this rises slowly. After a random amount of time,
you'll  get Bong!ed (and you thought this was a family magazine)
which,  unless  you've pressed your button, means you'll not win
BM                       Disc Contents

any  money.   It's  difficult to explain better than that. Let's
just  say you've to try and press your button before the Bong!er
goes off.

Next  up is a Blob demo from William "Mork" McGugan. I won't say
any more, but it really is very very funny.

Tackle!  consists  of two games, Jaws and Worm's World. In a fit
of  weirdness, somebody who shall remain nameless (OK, so it was
me  -  Colin)  observed that both games had something to do with
fishing;   hence   the   name  "Tackle".  Contrived  maybe,  but
nonetheless a brilliant way to fit even more stuff onto FRED...

E-Tunes  this  month  consists of a selection of seven fantastic
tunes  written  by  Andy  Monk.  Definitely a musician who'll be
going far in the SAM world is Andy.

There are more Triltex levels as usual. In fact, this month sees
the final 5 levels! So now at last you can finish the game!
BM                       Disc Contents

Steve  Taylor's  the bloke to thank for these (as you should all
know by now).

There's  no  Machine  Code  article  this month, I'm afraid. Has
Stevie  T forgotten to write it? Has he been kidnapped by a gang
of  rebellious  tin-openers?  Or  is  our  postal  system simply
falling to pieces? Who knows? To make up for this utter tragedy,
we've  decided to reward you all for being such loyal readers by
(a) being unnecessarily corny and ingratiating and (b) by giving
you part 2 of "Rachel!" Now, can you honestly say we're not good
to you? (And you'd better be thinking "Gosh, how jolly generous"
otherwise we will NOT be pleased).

There was going to be a game called SAM Mines on this issue, but
Colin  kindly  pointed  out that it had already been on an issue
previously.  So  that  kind  of  ruined  things  for  that idea.
Instead,  we're  proud  (-ish, ha ha) to present the latest demo
from the multi-talented, Mr Versatility, Simon Cooke! (Like, far
out man). Called Interlace, we think you'll quite like this...
BM                        Bits N Bobs

On  Bits  N  Bobs  this  month, we've got a small (but perfectly
formed)  Dice  game  written  by  Calvin Allett. This is for two
players. Instructions are given in the game, apart from the keys
which are S to skip and SPACE to throw (so remember them).

There's  also  a  demo by Mork of a highly complex animated man.
You'll  need  to wait a couple of minutes before the demo proper
starts, so be patient.

Mork gets his name splattered all over the place AGAIN now. He's
sent in some extra levels for his strategy game ORE WARZ  which,
if  I  remember correctly, appeared on issue 24A, the first disk
of  our  2nd Anniversary issue.  You will need issue 24A to play
with  these  new  levels,  so if you didn't get it when it first
came out there's even more incentive now!!

Finally  in  Bits  N Bobs is a scroller by Charles Hawes. It's a
bit  slow,  but  a clever little thing, so we'll forgive him for
that.
CM                   My dear cherubs......

Well,  it  seems that things are getting more and more hectic by
the minute here but they might just calm down after Christmas!!!
(I wish!)

There  seems to have been a little mishap last month with FRED27
subscribers.  Because  of  the large quantities of FRED that now
get  despatched,  they  were sent out over 2 days in 4 different
batches.  One of these batches was put into the main Post Office
box  because  the  office  had just closed and it turns out that
there  was something slightly magnetic in there as well! Magnets
next  to  discs  spells  problems - several discs were therefore
corrupted on arrival. I apologize for this.

As  I  pointed out in last month's newsletter, there are still a
few  problems  to  be sorted with regards to the duplication. We
are  getting these out of the way but such a big step for such a
small company is not easy. Please bear with us.


CM                         ETracker


It's  big, it's bad and it's out to astound the lot of you! Yup,
ETracker  has been making waves for 6 months now, and as I speak
the  manual  and  inlay  have  just gone past the final stage of
proofing  before printing and the whole package will be released
by the time you read this.


Brian tells me that there are a few ETracker tunes on this issue
but  I  have  compiled a bigger selection. Also on the disc I've
stuck  a  load of demos of FRED games and bits of text. Entitled
"FRED'92" it costs just £1 (to cover costs) and will contain all
you  need to know about FRED. Now, people that have been getting
FRED for more than a few months need not get this because you'll
have  seen it all before but for you new subscribers it could be
quite  appealing.  The intention is to get it on-body printed as
well,  in  which  case  I need all orders for it to be in by the
16th January 1993.

CM                         ETracker

For  those of you fortunate enough to have ETracker, you WILL be
composing some very nifty tunes in the near future. All ETracker
tunes  sent  in  to  FRED (usual address) will be included on an
issue of FRED. The better musicians will recieve an extension to
their  subscription whilst the ruddy amazing musicians will have
their skills employed to FRED and Revelation.

Next  month,  I  might have thought up a decent prize for a best
ETracker  music  competition. In the meantime all the music that
gets  sent  in will be included in the competition - I just have
not decided what to give away as a prize yet!

A  brief  note  on  piracy : ETracker is costing ME (Colin) well
over  a  thousand  pounds to release. I feel that it will do the
SAM  the  world of good to have quality music. However, I CANNOT
afford to lose money over this - I have taken out a loan just to
pay for it's release. Please, do not pirate this - whatever your
reasons, I stand to lose a lot of money. Thank you.

CM                         Reminder

Just a quick reminder of a few of the services that FRED offer:

We  do  stock hardware but you'd be advised to give me a ring on
0382 534201 to check stock and price.

All  back  issues  are available costing £2 each - reductions if
you are a subscriber.

Software  produced  by  :  Andy  Wright,  Steve Nutting, Enigma,
Hilton, LERM, Noesis, Axxent, Chezron, BGS and Glenco is stocked
by FRED.

The brilliant FREDatives & Rachel discs are also available.

Send  a SSAE for the latest order form - and if you want details
on  a  product  or two - just ask. But please, don't say "I want
more details of everything" unless you enclose a £20 note....


CM     Another Reminder.... (Don't worry - it's my last page)

OK,  just  to  make  sure everyone's kept in the picture as they
say,  FRED  rose  in  price  as of issue 26. The new price is £2
because  of  various  things  -  detailed in FRED26 surprisingly
enough!

As part of this price rise, FRED can now pay for contributions -
admittedly,  you  ain't  gonna  be  a  millionaire  from  coding
scrollies  with  nice  piccies, but a few quid never goes amiss!
Now,  hard  cash  is only paid for items that appear on the main
menu.  For  screens, Bits N Bobs items, articles, ETracker tunes
etc., if your contribution is good enough we'll add a few issues
to  your  subscription,  chuck  a few goodies your way, give you
mega big discounts off software - that sort of kind and generous
offer....

I  still really haven't had that much feedback on what you think
about  the price increase (which still leaves FRED as one of the
cheapest!!) or the on-body printing (which someone else is bound
to copy sooner or later!). Now, I bid you fairwell. Colin.
BM                    And That's About It

There's  not  much else to say for this month, other than at the
end  of  the magazine you'll find some more wrestling news! Yes,
after  a  long  break the FRED Wrestling expert, Darren Hubbard,
has returned!

There  are  no Music Reviews this month, because all my cash has
had  to  go  on  Christmas  presents (and therefore NOT on CDs).
Normal  service  will hopefully be resumed next month, depending
on  whether  or  not  I spend my money on "enjoying" New Year (a
traditional time for us Scots when the Off-Licences tend to make
a fair bit of money themselves...).

In  the meantime though, Merry Christmas, and I hope you all get
nice FRED software articles in your stockings!





BM                          Credits

Editor:- Brian McConnell
Publisher:- FRED Publishing

Thanks this month to:-

                 Charles Hawes   Ben Wyatt
                 Calvin Allett   Banzai!
                         Mork!   Hipposoft
                   Simon Cooke   BTB
                  Steve Taylor   Ian Slavin
                     Andy Monk   Electron Affinity


REMEMBER:-   The expression "kill 2 birds with one stone" is not
meant  to be taken literally. It is, however, quite easy, if you
catch them in a large net first...



DH               Daz Hubbard's Wrestling Pages!

Back  after a years absence, FRED  has its wrestling pages back!
So, not having anything better to do in my spare time, I will be
providing you with the vital news  and stuff about the WWF.   (I
would  be writing about WCW (better wrestling organisation in my
opinion:it has no  gimmicks) but due  to lack  of news, I  won't
be).

Lets have a look at the wrestlers, shall we? (Yes, we shall).

----------------------------------------------------------------
MACHO MAN RANDY SAVAGE  242 lbs                         Good Guy
Two  time WWF Champion, he  is one of the  best wrestlers in the
WWF.  He  wears a beard  and dodgy  coloured, loud ring  attire.
Tags with  the  Ultimate  Warrior  in  the  tag  team  "Ultimate
Maniacs" and says "Oooooh Yeeaahh!" a lot.
Finishing Move - Flying Elbow of the top turnbuckle.
----------------------------------------------------------------
ULTIMATE WARRIOR  275 lbs                               Good Guy
One time WWF Champion, one of the strongest wresters in the WWF.
Wears tassles round his  legs and arms and he is another one for
loud wrestling gears. Prone to growling o  interviews.
Finisher - Flying Tackle / Big Splash / Gorilla Press
----------------------------------------------------------------
Ric Flair  235 lbs                                       Bad Guy
Two time  WWF Champion. Managed by Mr Perfect,  he acts likes he
is partying all the time. Has white hair (he's in his 40's!) and
wears red trunks.
Finisher - Figure Four leglock
----------------------------------------------------------------
Razor Ramon  287 lbs                                     Bad Guy
A newcomer. Thinks he's "machismo". Walks and talks slow. He has
a  fake "Al Capone" accent and has  a cocktail stick hanging out
of his gob whenever he's not wrestling.  Wears black trunks with
the words "Razor Ramon" on them.
Finisher - Razor's Edge
----------------------------------------------------------------
Bret "The Hitman" Hart  235 lbs                         Good Guy
Two time  tag team holder, two time  Intercontinental Holder and
current WWF Champion. The best  techical wrester in the WWF,  he
can hold  his own against the best WWF  has to offer. Wears pink
shades and pink and black ring attire.
Finisher - Sharpshooter
----------------------------------------------------------------
Shawn Michaels  240 lbs                                  Bad Guy
Extremely vain speedster. Calls  himself "Sexy Boy". Wears white
wrestling tights with lips on them.
Finisher - Belly-to-back side suplex.
----------------------------------------------------------------
British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith  275 lbs                Good Guy
One  time tag  team holder  and current  Intercontinental Holder
(like the WWF  belt, but  not as presigious)  he is  one of  the
strongest  wrestlers in  the WWF.  Beat his  brother-in-law Bret
Hart for the  title. Wears dreadlock-type  hair and tights  with
the Union Jack on them.
Finisher - Running Powerslam
----------------------------------------------------------------

                     News - New tag Champs!

Money Inc - Ted Dibiase and IRS - have beaten the gargantuan 856
lbs  Natural  Disasters  -  Earthquake  and  Typhoon -  for  the
Tag-team belts.
At the start of the  match, Money Inc came down to the ring with
their manager  Jimmy Hart. There had been controversy during the
weeks leading up  to the  match who  was the No  1 contenders to
fight  the Natural  Disasters,  Money  Inc or  the  Nasty  Boys,
another tag-team managed by Hart. When Money Inc got to the ring
the  Nasty  Boys  followed, and  kicked  in  Ted  DiBiase  while
throwing IRS over  the top  rope, injuring his  knee. After  the
angry  Nastys  went  back  to  the  dressing room,  the  Natural
Disasters  went  to the  ring  and  pummeled  DiBiase.  Just  as
Earthquake  was doing his  finisher - the  vertical splash - the
Headshrinks, an unorthodox tag-team, came to ring-side.  Wanting
no interference  the referee  warned them  back while  Money Inc
double teamed Earthquake,  throwing him over  the top rope  with
his head connected with the steel barricades.
With  Earthquake back  in the  ring, DiBiase  put Earthquake  to
sleep  with his  finisher, the  Million Dollar  Dream, made  him
submit, and won the match and the belts.

                   Survivor Series 6 - Matchs

Reviews & Letters

                            Letter 1

                         Calvin Allett

Dear Colin,
           I am writing for a couple of reasons, the first being
in  regards  to  the  anonymous letter you featured in issue 20,
sure  the  SAM  isn't as fast as the 16 and 32 bits of the world
but  if programmed correctly it could be almost as fast as an ST
for  quite  a  few  things, the SAM is never going to be able to
beat  the  Amiga  at  speed  even if SAMCO did bring out an 8Mhz
processor, the Amiga is just too well equipped.

With  an  8Mhz  processor that would match the Amiga's speed but
what  about the Amiga's custom chips Denise, Paula and Agnus not
to  mention  its  Blitter,  the  Amiga  can  put  on  some  very
impressive  graphics  and  sound demo's without hardly bothering
the main CPU, how can an 8 bit processor compete with this.

The best thing for SAM owners to do is just compare the SAM with
the  SAM, for years in the press people have moaned on about "My
ST's  better  than  your  Amiga" and vice versa and this kind of
behaviour is just pointless.

Instead  of mentioning all the ways the Amiga beats the SAM what
about  all  the ways the SAM matches or beats the Amiga, the SAM
is  now  capable  of  having  eight times as many colours as the
Amiga, the SAM has a faster disk drive, More channels for music.

The  very  first soundtracker (named E Tracker) program is to be
released  soon  for  the  SAM,  I'm  not  quite  sure  what  the
specifications  are but on the Amiga and other computers some of
their Trackers are able to mimic double the channels, this gives
the  Amiga  8  channels,  with  time we'll probably be seeing 12
channel  music  packages for the SAM and it's when software like
this is released when people will sit up and take notice.

If  you  were  to  measure  how  far a computer can be pushed in
percentage  then  I'd  reckon the SAM hasn't even been pushed to
25%  of  it's  full capabilities yet and it's all to do with the
programmer's,   there   just  arn't  enough  good  machine  code
programmers   on   the  SAM  yet,  sure  we've  had  some  great
programmers  moving  onto  the  SAM  scene from the Spectrum and
the've  produced  very  pleasing  results, and that's with their
first  attempts  but we need more, much more if the SAM is going
to  succeed  and  if  people  from 16 bit computers are going to
start and dabble with the SAM.

He  also  mentioned the SAM becoming like the PC for gadgets and
incompatibilities,  I  don't  agree,  the only trouble there has
really been so far is the ROM.

Sure  there  are  lots  of  bolt ons for the SAM but these don't
really  pose  any  problem apart from having things sticking out
all  over  (Ohh  Err), the PC is much different and the problems
are mainly with clock speed and Display cards, the main card now
for  the  PC  is  the  SVGA  following  with  VGA  right down to
herculees  etc, as it's not very likely for SAMCO or anyone else
to  start bringing out better graphics boards or processor's for
the SAM I don't thing we really need worry.

Apart  form the PC I don't think any other computer could really
be improved that much without making a total mess, Amstrad tried
it  with  the CPC's and didn't really succeed, they gave it 4096
colours,  sprites,  DMA but only for cartridge games and so only
really  succeeded  in  killing off a lot of tape software before
it's  time, and they didn't really think they could compete with
Sega and Nintendo with a Console/Computer.

So there isn't much chance of the SAM's chips been souped up and
I  doubt whether that many users would be willing to get the old
Soldering iron out every time something new came out.

The  only  real  problem with the SAM is the fact that it hasn't
got a built in printer port (in this day and age!).


BRIAN  -  Thanks for the letter. We at FRED could not agree more
with  those  sentiments.  The  fact is, there's no way that 1000
people  are  going  to come up with a spare £50 for the proposed
new  ASIC  chip.    I  also  agree that there's a long way to go
until  the  SAM  reaches  its full potential. The Amiga is still
pushing  forward  its  standards  after  all these years, so why
should the SAM be any different?
                           Letter 2
DEAR COLIN

            Just  to let you know I  wasn't that against the 50p
price rise, its just that so many magazines put up their  prices
and its just I've been getting peeved off with it all...
   Can you send  back old issues of  FRED and get them replaced?
Not that I hate  them, it's because  a few have annoying  sector
errors, and they always seem to be on the Screen$.
   A couple  of months back, FRED's  software releases contained
such delights as a  RPG, a beat-em-up  and a soccer game.  Where
are they?!?

                 DARREN "Cheese helmet" HUBBARD

BRIAN  -  Glad you approve of the price rise... By all means, if
your  FRED  has  developed a sector error just send us back your
ORIGINAL  FRED  DISK  and an SAE and we'll replace it completely
free of charge. More about FRED's software plans later on in the
section though.

                           Letter 3
Dear Fred,

Here are some comments about some of your games I have bought :

Dyzonium

It's games like this that make you happy that you don't have to
pay £40-£l65 for a game.

FRED Publishing's finest so far.
At £9.99 I would recommend this game to anyone.

90%

Parallax

The most overhyped load of c@#p since Sphera.

The sound and end of level graphics are the only good thing
about this game.
Playability? What playabilty - it's the same all the way through
and the keyboard control is rubbish.

The multi-load system is a nightmare even if this pathetic game
did take up 256K (which I doubt) why not use the 512K?

Well done on cutting the demos down to rolling demos with some
music etc taken out. I think these are more likely to sell the
game.

Well done on putting extra things on the Dyzonium disc like
demos - it gives better value and promotes products well.
WaterWorks looks like it could be a classic with some decent
music and a little polishing.

What happened to :

The beat em up.
Kick Off clone
The Tower
Lord Insanity
Franky Fuka
Lemmings

Yours sincerely, Matt Davies


CM : Glad you liked Dyz Matt. Parallax originally took up 3
discs but we managed to compress it down to just 1 disc!

Beat em up - possibly still on

Kick Off - indefinetely postponed due to technical problems

The Tower - We're discussing the continuation of this one

Lord Insanity - still coding away furiously on SAM

Frantisek - erm, don't know - haven't spoken to him for ages

Lemmings - ??????????????

B Spencer             Dyzonium Review

If  you've  been  put  off buying this collect/shoot-em-up (as I
very  nearly  was) by the Newsdisk playable (?) demo, then think
again.  The  released  version  has  improved  graphics  and the
difficulty  is  set  at a more reasonable level. In fact, with a
little practice, it shouldn't be too long before you're on level
2   where   things   get  a  little  more  hectic  (including  a
particularly persistant & indestructable little alien that keeps
following you around and getting in your way).

Hints : Don't rush (there's no time limit)
        Use the map (it's there to help you)
        Don't waste your power-ups, especially your smart  bombs
(these could mean the difference between an easy pick up and the
'Game Over' message appearing)

Verdict  : The graphics & speed aren't anything special but this
is  more  than  made up for by the excellant playability and, at
the end of the day, this is the one thing you cannot do without.
Recommended.
D Marsden           Another Dyzonium Review

This game is too much like a PD game, and why when the coupe has
128  colours  did Balor Knight use white on black? So there is a
bit of colour on the space ship but that's about it. What is the
point  in  using  3 or 4 colours on a space ship that's so small
when  most  of the screen's just black? Even the spinning coffin
isn't  filled  in.  Though  the  game is easier than the demo of
Plasmoid  I  played  it  stills  seems  to be very hard and very
boring  to play. The energy bar makes it very easy to get killed
in  one  go  making  it  impossible to get anywhere. It's nearly
impossible  to make the ship move in a straight line and cleanly
turn. Yet all is not lost the music is very funky and well done,
the  intro  is  very  detailed  and  I  loved  the  way the ship
explodes.

I  loved  Impatience  and still play on the later levels. I also
liked  Parallax  but Dyzonium wouldn't even make a good Spectrum
game.  I  think  FRED  at  least  in this case should never have
bought  the  license  for  this  game. But as you did I think it
still needed more work done to it - colouring the coffin, bigger
more  detailed  graphics  and  making  the  first  levels  a lot
smaller.  Sorry  for  being critical but I don't think this game
has  done you any good at all and I would really like to see you
do well and this sort of game will only give you a bad name.


CM  :  It  is  extremely  difficult  to program a fast game like
Dyzonium  to use more than 16 colours on screen. The main sprite
is  16  x  16  pixels  which is the most common size for sprites
across ALL computers. You complained about the lack of colours -
and then said the ship used too many colours??

The  spinning  coffin  is done in line vectors - something never
done  on  SAM  before,  it is not supposed to be coloured - that
would  be  easier.  Line  vectors  are  used in the latest games
across all formats.

You  didn't  like  the energy bar? If we'd used lives, you would
have lost one and gone back to the start of the level as soon as
you  touched  an  alien,  making it far too difficult or if we'd
given you more energy it would have made the game too easy.

Thanks  very much for your comments - I know I didn't agree with
them  but  from  the  way  everyone is talking about the game it
should  get  good  reviews.  It's  also proved very popular - it
could well be one of the best selling SAM games in a long time!


Next  we've  got  the  review  you've  all been waiting for: the
review  of  the  PRODUCT you've all been waiting for!! Yes, it's
our E-Tracker review, written by Andy Monk who's responsible for
this  month's  excellent  E-Tunes  (so  he should know what he's
talking about).









ANDY M                      E-TRACKER

Well,  what  can  I  say  about  E-Tracker? I could start off by
talking  about  the  technical  features of this wonderous music
package. But I won't, just for the beginners out there!

E-tracker  is,  when  it comes down to it, the Sam equivalent to
Soundtracker  on the Amiga. That program started off a long line
of  similar  utilites with 'Tracker' as the suffix to the title.
Could we suddenly be swarmed with tracker programs on the Sam?

Anyway, on with the review:

E-Tracker  allows  you  to  use  the SAA-1099 sound chip to it's
utmost.  All  octaves (2048 tones) can be reached. Total control
over  both  the left & right speakers. All noise frequencies and
mixing  combinations.  Literally  thousands  of  sounds  can  be
created  using the instrument editor. But it doesn't stop there,
you can overlay any instrument with what's known as an Ornament!

What do we use it for?

Well,  E-Tracker is ideally suited to games music, but of course
it  can  be  used  for  absolutely anything so, as they say, the
choice is entirely up to you.

The instruments that E-Tracker uses are made up of elements. The
maximum  number of elements is 256, but for each element you can
have   a   pitch,  noise/tone  mix,  noise  frequency,  seperate
left/right  volume  control.  After  that you can loop a certain
part  of the instrument endlessly if you wish! The only niggle I
have  about  instruments  is that you can only have a maximum of
36.

Luckily  there's  something  to  triple  the  versatility of the
instrument.  The  Ornament editor is a simplified version of the
instrument  editor.  It works that when combined with any of the
36 available instruments, it will increase or decrease the value
of the instruments pitches.

ESI  are  using  the tried and tested means of displaying music.
It's represented as something like:

C-3 4221

This would represent one channel playing a flat 'C' at octave 3.
The  4  numbers  are  Instrument, Ornament, Command, Value. Yes,
E-Tracker  uses  special commands to increase the versatility of
instruments  and  ornaments  being  played.  The digit after the
command is the value for the command. For example command 4 with
a  value  of  10 would allow that the note on that line a volume
reduction of 10. Useful for echoing sounds etc...

After  using  E-Tracker for about three weeks, I have produced a
few tunes some of which may be floating around on this Fred. See
what you think.                            (THEY'RE GREAT! - ED)

Now  after  all  that, I'm sorry to have to say that there are a
couple  of  improvements that can be made to make E-Tracker even
more amazing than it already is...



Mouse/Pointer control would've been nice,
Copying patterns/tracks could be easier,
Erm, nothing else...

Anyway,  I  was  supposed  to  compare E-Tracker with the 'Sound
Machine',  but  because 'E-Tracker' is obviously better than the
'Sound  Machine' and because there IS NO comparison, I won't. If
you  like  producing music or are into computer generated music,
or  you're  even  a fan of the old speccy stuff, I strongly urge
you  to  buy  this  for  christmas, at £29.99 it definitely is a
bargain!

My ratings are:

User-friendlyness:  88 %
Presentation     :  65 %
Lastability      :  95 %
Versatility      :  98 %
Efficiency       :  95 %

Total rating     :  92 %

Brian : So there you have it. ETracker is brill. But that's from
an  expert;  if  you  bought  ETracker  and  had had no previous
experience,  please do write and let us know what you thought of
it.  Perhaps  a  review by a complete beginner would help give a
complete picture of the package?

Finally,  here  are  some reviews  done by me. They're of Boing,
Bulgulators,   and   Revelation's   new   word   processor  "The
Secretary" (in that order).











BM                          Boing!

This  is  a  game very much in the Dizzy mould; you, as a small,
oddly shaped (green!) being must wander around a screen-flicking
environment,  collecting  objects  to  use  later on in specific
locations,  solving  puzzles  and trying to find as many jugs as
possible while you're at it.

One  major  improvement  over  the  Dizzy series is that it's no
longer  a  case  of  touch-one-baddy-and-die  because there's an
energy  bar  in  this  game.  I'll say here that I'm the sort of
person  that  usually  HATES  this  type of game; I can never be
bothered  trying  to work out what needs to be done, and usually
get  bored after a couple of minutes. Unfortunately, I can't say
"but  Boing  taught  me  the  error of my ways!" because I still
don't  like  this  sort  of game.  There's nothing fundamentally
wrong  with  the  game,  it's simply that I don't like having to
actually  THINK  about  what I'm doing too much.  I have, in the
past,  played  a fair number of these sort of games, and it must
be  said  that Boing! compares very well indeed with most others
of the genre.
BM                        Boing! ctd

The  graphics  are good, if a little "samey" throughout, but the
music is superb. It's nearly worth buying just to hear that! The
whole  program  is  strung  together nicely, though I would have
liked to have been told what the keys were by Colin when he gave
me this to review. I spent my first few games not knowing that I
could drop objects!! This might have something to do with my not
being desperately fond of the game...

If  you  do  like  Dizzy-type games, I'm confident that you will
like  this.  Bearing  in  mind the fact that I do not like these
games  at  all,  I'm  going  to  give  it  5/10.  If  you  think
differently,   though,  remember  that  you  can  send  us  YOUR
review...!






BM                        Bulgulators

A  strong  contender  for  "most  bizarre  title" award for 1992
(unless  Wop Gamma is released before January!), Bulgulators has
been eagerly awaited to say the least. A variation on the Pacman
theme,  there are numerous "twists" to the idea, such as one-way
walls  and  locked  walls  (which,  logically enough, need to be
unlocked).  There are a hundred levels to the game, which should
keep  most  people  going for a good couple of hours, along with
bonus  levels  every  so often, and thankfully, passwords to the
later levels.

This  game  plays  pretty  much  as you'd expect; it's certainly
competently  coded.  There  are  a  couple  of  problems though.
Firstly, when you change direction 180 degrees (ie from straight
up  to straight down) there's a slight delay which all too often
results  in a lost life. It's not TOO bad, but it can be a pain.
The  second  major problem is the colour scheme! Aarrgghh!! Some
of  the  mazes are truly revolting, and add to the difficulty no
end. This might be due to my colour-blindness, but I don't think
having  normal  colourvision is the problem, because I put my TV
BM                      Bulgulators ctd

on  black  and  white and it still looked vile! The walls of the
maze are very simple, just white lines 2 pixels thick, and these
do  tend to get "lost" against some of the brighter backgrounds.
Same  with  the dots, which can make for a very confusing level.
Add  in the intentional "problems" and things get very difficult
indeed!

These  painful-to-look-at  levels  don't  occur  often enough to
really  spoil  the  game,  though, and it's just a minor niggle.
Something  else  which  annoyed  me was the fact that I couldn't
guess the passwords!

You  might  be thinking that a maze game isn't the sort of thing
that  can  keep  you  playing for long, but believe me, it does.
Even  with  the odd horrible background! The difficulty level is
set  about  right;  you  can't just zoom off to level 20 on your
first  game,  but  you should be able to progress easily enough.
Overall,  I'm  giving  this  7/10. Neither graphics nor sound is
outstanding, but both are more than adequate.
BM                 The Secretary - Revelation

I've  been  waiting ages to see what this was like, and now I've
had a chance to mess around with it, I really don't know what to
think.  As far as options go, this has them in abundance.  There
are  much much more features than Outwrite has to offer, such as
line-drawing  and  box-drawing, both of which can be very useful
indeed for reports and things.

I suppose it's inevitable that this and Outwrite are going to be
compared  to eacher other; both were intended to become the best
SAM worprocessors, so for this review I'll base things on that.

The  main advantage Secretary has over Outwrite is the option to
alter  the  left/right  margins on the page. This allows a great
deal  more  versatility  as  you  can  probably imagine. You can
quickly  and  easily  alter  the ruler in terms of width and TAB
positions.

Both  this  and  new  version  of  Outwrite offer menus with the
various  selectable  options,  but  I'd say that Secretary has a
BM                     The Secretary ctd

better  user  interface  than  either  of  the Outwrites for the
simple  reason  that  you  can  use either the menus or, in many
cases, keypresses.

Both  packages  feature  built-in  help screens, which is a good
thing.

From  what  I've said so far, you might be forgiven for thinking
that  Outwrite  is  now obsolete. Sadly, you'd be wrong. For all
Secretary's  advanced  features, it suffers horribly in terms of
speed.  For example, in Secretary there's a "proper" insert mode
where  entering  a character causes the whole paragraph to shift
along.   This  works,  but  unbearably  slowly.  Even the normal
word-wrap  feature  works  much more slowly when an altered page
length  is  being  used.  This might not seem important, but for
long documents can be a hell of a nuisance.

Something  else  which could prove too much for the Secretary is
the  fact  that  all the other word processors use the same file
BM                     The Secretary ctd

format;  You can load Tasword II files easily into Outwrite, for
example.   Secretary  uses  a  slightly  different system which,
while  technically  superior,  tends  to  make  life  a bit more
difficult when swapping between programs.

If  you  haven't already got a word processor, and so won't have
these  compatibilty  problems,  then  you would probably be well
served by Secretary, especially if the presentation is something
which  is likely to be important.  I think that for FRED writing
though, I'll stick to Outwrite.

To  the marks then; 7/10.  It would have been more, but the loss
of speed really is a nuisance.






                           Next Munf


Remember, FRED29 will be out around the middle of January. The
deadline for this issue is the 30th December - so get
scribbling!

FRED29 costs £2. Orders can be accepted in advance or once it
appears, but you'd be better off with a FRED subscription - only
£20 for 12 issues, giving you an automatic saving of £4...

Remember, all the special offers detailed last month STILL
STAND, any new offers will be listed on the Newsletter.




FRED Magazine and it's contents are (c) 1992 FRED Publishing