Fred 69

Issue 69

Magazine

CA                         Editorial

Editorials, eh?  Supposedly first introduced in a magazine
called "Woman's Helper" in 1941 when women had to fend for
themselves and their family when their hubbies were out at war.
Then it was just a little chit-chat to warm their hearts and
spirits.  Todays editorials are generally a little introduction,
maybe a page long to introduce the readers to the magazine and
tell them about anything exciting.

FRED's editorials are paaageeesss long (and sometimes longer).
Strictly speaking, I should be paid the wages of forty men (or
women....).

Anyway, I got round to thinking.  Wouldn't it be nice if we
could have a bit more to FRED.  A little more than the hilarious
anecdotes from Ando, something to make this section slightly
more magaziney.  Anyone agree?  Well, to cut a long story short,
I've had a litte think, and I've had a few ideas for sections.
If anyone would like to write an article (or more) on any of
these, please write in and say.
CA                     Magazine (woooo)

- Cheats / Help section on SAM (and Speccy?) games
- The History of FRED
- MORE REVIEWS!!!
- "SAM on the internet...."
- A Gamesmaster Guide / Help page.
- Same for SCADs, SAMPaint, SAM C, etc...

And anything else you can think of.  Maybe ther was a section in
one of the Speccy mags that you think could be included in FRED.
Maybe you've had a brand new idea that could revolutionize the
computer world as we know it - or it's not a bad idea anyway!

Please send in an example page of what you can do.  Probably the
easiest thing to do is send in the first part of the article.
Then, if it needs improving, I can send it back with some
pointers, and if it doesn't, tell you and stick in the first
part.  You can become famous, have a pretty impressive thing to
stick in your CV/Record of Achievement and improve your fantasy
FRED league score too!
CA                         Magazine

So, what's been happening this month?  Well, the Gloucester show
was about two weeks ago, but there'll be a full write-up
somewhere else.  Due to the lack of an interview, I've decided
to write a superb, really long write-up of the show and slap it
in the interview slot.  We'll have a SAM->PC article in this
section anyway, and I don't want to start spoiling you.

My coursework is building up something rotten as we near the end
of the academic year.  I've got exams on the 6th, 7th and 11th
of June, so the next issue of FRED will probably be a little
late.  Sorry for any inconvenience caused, but these are
important exams.  I'll be back on track by issue 70 though
because after the exams, I have to stay at Uni for three weeks
with nothing to do!  Hurrah!  I hope there's lots of taxpayers
out there reading this.  Thousands of students living of the
Government grant, subsidised by you.  Ho ho ho.  But anyway,
then I'm on my Summer holidays until October (yeah!), so FRED
should be better than ever.  And I won't be leaving just because
I'm in my second year like that Brian chap did.  Tish.
CA                         Magazine

Well, the footy season has come to a close (shame).  Manchester
United are champions (again).  As an editor I can't display any
preference between Man. Utd and Newcastle, but I must just point
out that Newcastle is a really great place and Andy Cole lost me
twenty quid in the sweepstake for the FA Cup final.  If he'd
managed to get a shot on target then I could've won twenty quid.
But did he?  Nope.  Twenty quid down the drain because he's
dreadful.  Sob.

What is wonderful though is that Lincoln City grabbed a stunning
FIVE - NIL victory over Torquay United on the last day of the
season.  Hooray!

To get you all over the sad loss of the football season, we will
be bringing you highlights of the Fantasy FRED League.  We would
bring you live coverage but SKY put in a higher bid.

Phew, I've managed to go four pages without making any no. 69
jokes...
CA                    Editorial - Take 2

OK.  It's now the 14th of May.  There's not, let's face it, much
chance of FRED getting up to Colin, then to the duplicators,
then to Colin, then to you within 3 days.  Heck, this issue is
going to be late.

What can I say?  Sorry.  I've been completely snowed under with
work recently.  Anyway, I'm going to spend all tonight working
on FRED.  I've already decided what to stick on, so I've now got
all night to write this editorial, the letters and put
everything together.  It's 1:37am now.  I've just finished an
essay, got all the stuff I need from the computer room, I've got
some caffine next to me, plenty of music to keep me company and
the threat of being sacked to keep me awake all night.

So, come on kiddies, let's all hold hands and leap boldly into
an all night FRED session...



CA                    Editorial - Take 2

Aside from working over the last two weeks, my student loan has
come through.  So, I'm feeling a bit rich now.  I've already
forked out for a new hi-fi after the calamity of my other one
being accidentally broken (ahem).  This one has a CD player and
flashy lights and everything, so I'm dead happy.  I don't know
how on earth I'd have been able to write FRED all night without
any music to guide my way (although I won't speak too soon).

I was forced to play football the other day, and now my legs are
recovering from that earth thing called "exercise".

I had a passing visit from Crashed editor, Allan Clarkson, and
despite being nice to him, still couldn't get him to do FRED for
me (darn).  I didn't even get any freebies from him.  And he had
one of my Wagon Wheels.  In fact, what a swine.

Ooh, groan, more caffine...   ahh, that's better.


CA                    Editorial - Take 2

The SAM communal e-mail thingy is getting pretty busy.  Now
after tea when we all go and check my mail, I get to boast
thirty new messages where all my friends are lucky to have
three.  Ho ho ho.  Chris White has even graced us with his
presence and managed to convince people that Worms would be
possible on the SAM.  Whatever next, eh?

Speaking of e-mails, I got an e-mail from Rebecca Ritters.
"Rebecca Ritters, who is she?" I hear most of you call.  Well,
maybe you'll know her better as Hannah, or Button from
Neighbours.  What a novelty!!  I'd found her e-mail address one
night when surfing the internet.  About three months later, I
got a reply.  Hooray!  So what if she told me that my e-mails
were disturbing and that I should leave her alone, she still
mailed me!

And now, while we're all in a PC mood, let's dive straight
forward into my next PC article...

CA                        Easy PC...2

I've received a few compliments about my article last month.
Most people said they couldn't believe I'd written something
sensible and were amazed that I had intelligence.

Another point raised was about the length of lines on a PC.  I
was maybe a little misleading when I said that text was 76
columns.  Most PC word-processed text is of varying length
(character wise) because of the way they store it (eg. 'i's are
smaller so they take up less room that a hulking great 'w').  I
was referring to plain text documents like e-mails and bog-
standard stuff.

Anyway, as promised, this month I'm moving onto the huge topic
of screens.  Screens are a lot harder to convert than text
because SAMs and PCs store them completely differently.  The
same basic concept is true - get them onto disc, convert them
into standard stuff, slap them through KE_Disc and use a
converter to get them into SAM type.  However, it's not quite
that easy....
CA                        Easy PC...2

Let's start from the start (always a good place I find).

Find the picture you want to convert.  As far as I know, on the
SAM the only picture converters are for BMP pictures.  BMP
pictures are a way of storing pictures on the PC, in pretty much
the same way as a SCREEN$ is a stored picture on the SAM.  On
the PC there are lots of different ways of storing screens -
JPeg is another popular way.  It's just like on the SAM, you can
store them as SCREEN$, SAMPaint compressed screen or as code
like on FRED.  Unless I can find out otherwise, you'll either
have to find BMP files, or convert them to BMP using a PC
program - there's bound to be one in most PD libraries, and some
painting packages might let you do it.

If you're scanning a picture in, the trick is to scan them in as
256 colours.  The reason for this is explained later.

Next you'll have to cut the picture down to SAM size - 256*192
pixels.  If PC's are any good, you should be able to do this on
CA                        Easy PC...2

most painting packages - Paintshop Pro definitely.  The picture
may not look very SAM screen shaped, but that's because of the
differences in resolution between the two computers.  When you
get it on the SAM, it may appear to 'stretch' lengthways.  To
combat this, you can expand the picture on the PC.  Play around
with this for best results.

Next put the picture into 16 colours.  Greyscale will look good
once it comes out on the SAM.  Colours are more tricky.  Windows
is a pain in that it's natural 16 colour selection is rubbish.
Either you have to play around a lot with the colours, or if you
are using Paintshop Pro, you can tell it to convert the picture
to 16 'adaptive' colours/four bits per pixel.  This will match
it to the best colour, so saves you messing around and getting
it wrong.  If you can't do this, don't panic.  Use greyscale.
It looks really good on the SAM, and quite often better than
colour.

Save your picture to disc - remember it should be 256 pixels
CA                Almost 2 Easy PC... Ho ho ho

along the screen and 192 pixels up the screen, and in BMP
format (unless you know better).

Now run along to your SAM.  Load up KE_Disc, insert your PC
disc, type LD filename, insert your SAM disc, then press RETURN
and then type SV filename.  You should know how to do that like
the back of your hand by now (incidentally, the back of my hand
says 'Hand In Essay', and I know that without looking).

Next we need BMP->SAM converter from issue somethingorother of
FRED.  See FREDex for the exact issue.  It's 48 or 49 I think.
Heck, you should have them all anyway.

Run the screen through BMP->SAM.  There is a slight bug in
BMP->SAM which for some reason means that the top and bottom
lines of your picture will have scrolled across two pixels.
Still, I suppose we can't complain about 4 dodgy pixels when
it's successfully converted 49148 pixels!

CA          Far 2 Easy PC... (Oh, it's still there!)

You picture should now be ready to be loaded up as a SAM screen!

Other formats
=============

Let's start with Archimedes, because that's the most awkward.
If you're converting from the Arch to SAM, you'll need to cut
the picture into a 16 colour, 256 x 192 picture like on the PC,
but save it as a standard Archimedes Sprite file.  Next, you'll
have to save it on a PC formatted disc in order to bring it over
to the SAM.

Run it through KE_Disc to get it onto a SAM disc, then run it
through the Arch->SAM sprite converter on issue 50 of FRED.  And
Bob's yer Format-ed!  It's there on the SAM!

The Apple Mac is supposed to work in the same way as the Pc
except that apparently converting it into 16 colours doesn't
work properly.  There is a way of correcting this, and that's
CA                        Easy PC...2

been published in Crashed.  I'll ask them if I could print the
routine in FRED, and if they say no post them nasty things.

As for other formats, probably the safest thing to do is to
convert the picture to the PC if possible, then follow the
routine written in the article.  If that doesn't work, write in
and we'll try to solve it.

Thanks to Allan Clarkson for tips and help on bits of that.


If you want to convert a MOD, simply stick it on a PC disc, run
that through KE_Disc, slap the file onto a SAM disc, and that's
it!  Run it through a MOD player (there's one on issue 41) and
it'll play in all it's glory.  What could be simpler?  Nothing.

Next month, I don't know what I'll cover.  If I think of other
stuff you may want to convert, I'll go over that.  Otherwise,
I'll go over any questions you have.
CA                           News

The SAM & Speccy show was a reasonable success.  The numbers
were lower than before, but people were buying, and there was an
encouraging amount of new companies and devlopments.  FRED came
away with a profit again, so we'll be returning again.  There is
news that there could be a show somewhere near Leeds in the
summer, so keep posted for that.

The PC game being worked on by FRED's other half, Digital
Addiction is being worked on at rapid pace.  That's the reason
there's no Jellytext this month - Matt Round is spending his
life doing graphical stuff for it, and says that Colin Mac would
kill him if he did anything to Jellytext!  So we'll let it pass
for a month or two...

And unfortunately, that's it for this month.  It's been a bit of
a quiet month.  However, next month, there could be some very
good news.  Watch this space (again)...


CA                    Editorial - Take 2

Well, it's 2:52am.  I'm still wide awake, are you???  Some chap
has just ran around our block banging on everyones doors.  Ha
ha, little does he know I'm wide awake.  More fool him.


Does anyone reading this know where I can get a little stand
that I can put over my video and stand my TV on?  The only telly
stands I can find sit on the floor and that's no good for my
room.  I just want a decent bit of metal/plastic/wood that will
hold my TV's weight.  As it if, the SAM is balancing on a bit of
wood (and two tape boxes to keep it level) and it's just
awkward.  So if anyone can help out, then please send me
details.  It will be much appreciated.

And now, to carry on with the magazine type appeal, I'll include
the PD reviews here....



DN                           PD Bit

Hello, it's me again with yet more PD reviews. After going to
the Sam  show on April 20th and picking up some interesting new
PD titles, I can (for once) say that next issue will feature
this column again. But enough of this, on with the reviews...

Banzai 'The Games' - Dan Doore

This is a collection of games written by Dan from 1990 to 1995.
Many of them have been in Fred before, so will not appeal as
much to long time readers. The disk contains:

Fruit Machine (very simple version, with poor graphics),
Laser Dodge (a laser moves diagonally down the screen - press
Space to move it upwards),
Yahtzee (good mouse-driven version of the dice classic),
Drac Attack (simple bomb your opponent, changing velocity and
angle),
Worms World (Snake game, collect money without crashing into
your body),
DN                             PD

Dead ducks (poor game similar to Drac Attack),
Dans Diamonds (collect columns of similar-coloured objects),
Simon (four coloured lights flash, repeat their pattern),
Annoyance (a simple memory game - remember positions of balls on
a grid).

The game has some good games (especially Yahtzee), whereas the
only really poor games are Fruit Machine and Dead Ducks. There
is also another game on it called Solitaire, but it is not the
card game - and I couldn't work out how to play it! This disk is
pretty good on the whole, but may offer very little new material
to long time Fred readers.

Overall - 69%

Beetle Mania - G.A.Bobker

This is a puzzle game where you, controlling a small beetle,
must push a collection of blocks onto some diamonds. This may
DN                             PD

sound pretty simple (actually, no, it doesn't) but the game is
set in a single-screen maze, making it that much more difficult.
Another thing to mention is that you can only push one block on
its own, not two or three. The graphics in this game are
terribly, terribly dire - so bad that they would even look poor
on a Spectrum. As for the sound, well, there is none. However,
there are two styles of play - Contest (tackle each level one
after the other) or Single (try and level you  like).  But  that
doesn't  matter,  because  after  about  5  minutes  it  becomes
extremely boring. The most worrying thing  about  this  game  is
that when first released, this game cost

Overall - 32%

Sam PD '96 - various

This is a little teaser package showing off some of the programs
in Sam PD's vast collection.The disk contains:

DN                             PD

Comet2ASCII (converts Comet files to ASCII(never!)),
Diskfiler (needs Masterdos, catalogues all of your disks so you
know what's where - good, but is it worth it?),
PC DIR and PD Disk Reader (guess),
some Screen$ (from Amiga, most are quite good),
Scoring programs for Tennis and Golf (what is the point?),
Word Processor (very poor),
BZZZ 2 (an incredibly slow Light Cycles game - avoid),
Kvakis (only decent game, objects fall from the sky, you must
rotate blocks at the bottom to match)

Overall, this is a pretty poor collection, except for one thing
which is Kvakis. However, it does have some specialist utilities
that would be useful for only a small number of users, it all
depends on what you want.

Overall - 59%


DN                             PD

All of the above cost  1.50, and are available from:

                         Sam PD
                         [redacted]

Also out now from them is a new disk catalogue. As well as
containing details of all of their products, it also has a few
other things, such as a demo of Ice Chicken, some Digitiser
Screens, Reviews and a full game, Pipetris (a cross between Pipe
Mania and Tetris!).Send them a disk + SAE and they'll get it to
you in no time. That's all for this month, next issue Andrew
Colliers ILLUSION disk will be reviewed, as well as a couple of
other bits, so keep reading.

Letters & Reviews

                    Letter From Mark Steele

Dear Colin,

    Just a short letter to ask some staggeringly important
questions (well, they are important to me anyway!).

    Going back a while to issue 60, a game called Blastamac
appeared containing pictures of the SAM "guys" and after playing
it for ages I discovered this picture of a bloke who looks like
Martin Clunes from Men Behaving Badly.  Who on earth is he? (If
you say Martin Clunes then I lose a fiver so please don't).

    Also, do you know where I can get another copy of the
Masterdos manual from as I seem to be coming across problems
with it.  It might be just me but does anyone else find that

1) Secret Diary - FRED 52 - refuses to format discs
2) Samples - FRED 67 - refuses to load
3) I keep getting strange messages and then having SAM C conk
    out on me.
                    Letter From Mark Steele

Oh well, that will teach me to try and be so clever.  Is anyone
else finding SAM C difficult to use or is it just me?

    By the way, Stefan Drissen's MOD player is excellent.  I
only got it the other day, but everybody else has probably had
it for months.

    Finally, just a little plug for my own software.  It is not
completed yet, so don't get too excited, but my GCSE revision
guide is coming along well.  It is only written in simple BASIC,
but all the mathematical facts are there, and it does help you
through those tricky maths exams. (I speak from experience!)  I
should have it finished in a week or two, so if you write to me
I will send you more details of it.  It will be £2.50 and should
be of use to most students.

    But now I will go back to my Sam, and will now try and
eventually complete 'Santa Goes Psycho II'.

                    Letter From Mark Steele

                             From,

                                  Mark Steele

P.S. On a recent FRED disc, I played a game where you were a
small craft at the bottom of the screen and you had to shoot at
a blob which bounced around the screen.  When you shot it, it
divided into two blobs, and they also had to be shot until the
little bits were also gone.  Then you moved onto the next
level...  But for the life of me I can't find the thing.  Can
anybody remember what it was called because I've tried just
about every word I can think of in FREDEX.

P.P.S. Please help me - I'm sad.





CA                   Reply To Mark Steele

Blastamac contained smaller versions of the people photographed
at a SAM show and put on FRED.  As far as I remember, Martin
Clunes wasn't at that show.  Martin Clunes?  Big ears, big lips.
Sounds like Macdonald to me.  Apart from that, pass.

I don't know where you're going to get a Masterdos manual from.
Maybe if you sent the original disc and an SAE to Revelation or
Format, they would send you a new copy.  You'd better ring
before you do though, or I'll get told off.  As for the bugs, it
sounds to me like you've got an old copy of Masterdos.  What is
the version number?  If you're using SAM C, you shouldn't need
to use Masterdos really, so stick with Samdos.

SAM C is going to be hard to master.  It's a completely new
language.  In the next couple of months, we'll be starting some
SAM C articles, which should help.  In the meantime, try some
books from the library, but don't give up - it'll be worth it in
the end.

CA                    Reply To Mark Steele

Keep in touch about the program.  We'll never remember to write
to you (we're useless like that - sometimes Colin has to remind
me that I edit FRED).

I can't believe people are STILL playing Santa Goes Psycho II.
It's 18 months old!  It just goes to show what quality programs
we have on FRED!

I think the game you're on about in the PS is Infection, again
by Matt Round, and is on issue 42 of FRED in slot K.  How's
that?








                    Letter From Ted Edwards

Dear Colin,

    A bit of a moan regarding the answer to Mr. John Saunders
letter in the latest issue of FRED.  He seems to hold the sam
view as me that FRED is aimed at the "WHIZZKID" fraternity,
I.E. yappy music, very corny jokes and quite a lot of bas
language (swear words are only used because they can't express
themselves any other way).

You've probably guessed by now that I'm an OAP.  I wonder if you
know how many older, or should I say elderly members you have.
I came to you via 'Outlet' when they stopped supporting SAM.  I
was "taken over" by FRED. "OUTLET" was a good mag.

    Sorry if I've dented you're ego a bit, I quite expect to get
a fairly rude reply.  But I've had my say.

                   Bye for now,
                                  Ted Edwards
CA              A Nice Reply To Ted Edwards...

OK, OK.  I was a bit hard on John Saunders.  Well, I was
actually really rude.  Sorry about that.  It was only intended
as a joke, but clearly didn't come over that way.

Personally, I don't see why there's such a great gap between
people my age and elderly people.  Lack of communication, I
guess.  At least my 'comments' last month have sparked off some
sort of discussion.

FRED has to cater for the majority of people.  That majority is
generally of student age, give or take a couple of years.  I
accept there's a lot of other groups of people who use the SAM,
and that's all thanks to the designers making it an easy to use
machine.  For FRED to cater more for people your age, Ted, we
need feedback.  Every month I ask for some information about
what readers want to see in FRED.  The actual overall feel of
FRED won't ever change - people don't want that.  However, we
can always add things to FRED.  I'd guess that you're after the
more helpful, but not too technical articles.  Write in and tell
CA                    Reply To Ted Edwards

me.  I'm sure I can find someone to write almost any article,
but I can't stress enough that without your input, FRED can only
get further away from what you want.  I just assume people are
happy with what I do, which can't be true 100% of the time.

As for swearing, that's generally my fault.  I'm not supposed to
use it, and only do to try and emphasise something.  Colin M
tells me off when I do use it, and I'll get rid off it.  It's
not usually that bad, is it?


Apologies again to John Saunders (if he's still reading!).







                  Letter From Darren Wileman

To: All Editor's Of SAM Magazines  [My, how personal... - CA]

Saturn Software have decided that it was time that SAM, and the
Spectrum were both represented on the Internet.  A World Wide
Web page has been set up, and is currently available to everyone
who has access to a PC with a Web Browser installed, ready for
internet access.

It would be greatly appreciated if anyone has any information on
either the Spectrum, or the SAM vould contact us as soon as as
possible, and we will add any information deemed useful to the
Web Page.  If you want to advertise on the pages of the Web
also, then please let us know, and we will get in contact to
arrange it.  The Web Page was launched, on the 5th of April
1996.

Web address : HTTP://OURWORLD.COMPUSERVE.COM/HOMEPAGES/MOGUE
E-mail addr : [redacted]
                                                 David Wileman
CA                  Reply To David Wileman

Colin and I have had a play on these pages.  At the moment, the
WWW pages are a bit sparse, but there is potential for it to be
very good in the future.

There is nothing there of relevance for the Spectrum, but
there's hundreds of other sites for Speccy stuff anyway.













                    Letter From Paul Dudley



Does anyone know a quick easy way to get rid of the bloody
anoying fuzz that comes from my TV when I use the Sam? Sometimes
I can't even hear MODs I play which sort of spoils the effect.

Also does anyone like Alanis Morissette, cos' I think shes great
and she really deserved her Best International Newcomer, Echo
and 4 Grammys.

Last of all if anyone wants the address of Tracey Coleman's fan
club I've put it below. She's pretty good too, eh!
                         [redacted]

And if anyone has Alanis Morrisette's fan club address write
a letter to Fred and put it on the end (if Colin doesn't mind).
CA                    Reply To Paul Dudley

There is a clever way to get rid off fuzz from your TV set, but
I can't remember how.  It's got something to do with moving
something out of your power pack into a separate bit (maybe).
Can anyone help?

I told Stefan Drissen that I'd buy one of his MOD players if he
put a screen blanker option in it because my TV does the same.
He has now put one in, so I owe him some money (darn).  You may
want to find out about that.

Alanis Morissette was indeed good on the Brit Awards, although
apart from that song, I haven't heard much stuff - probably
because I never listen to the radio...

You might as well tell me what to stick on FRED, everyone else
does now!



                    Letter From Howard Price

Wotcha everyone,

    This is damn good timing for everyone competitive doing the
FRED Fantasy League.  Sad I know, especially for me to come out
of my lethargy just for the excuse of being worth bags of money,
but hey! WHO CARES?  Anyway, the reason it's good timing is
because of this:

1) I'm worth £0.1mil so everyone choose me.
2) There are other bargains to be had, but I dunno if I ought
   to tell anyone else, because they'll nick them and provide me
   with some bleeding competition.

Right, down to schematics (I'm very bored, so be careful).  Can
you say hello to yourself?  What if another Womble did it?  What
is another Entropy geezer did it?  What is another bloke on my
team did it?  It's so confusing!

What happens to all the unused stuff?  See, every now and again,
             Letter From Howard Price (and Sylvia)

you must get two menus for the same ish.  So what do you do?
Can you change the issue number.  Then does it count for extra
marks or what?  Then is Modules and E-Tunes different types of
music, or what?

Anyway, I would have some stuff to give yer for this ish, tell
the truth I have, but let us for a minute pretend I haven't so
it counts for my score next month!! ....  This is going to be a
very empty issue, isn't it?  'Till then Col, bye.
                                                  -Tobermory


PS This is Howard's friend Sylvia.  The boring git's spent ages
   on this, so I've got to beat him.  Give me Round, Andy
   Collier, Brunsden, Handley, Anon Smith, Stewy Skardon, and a
   couple of 0.2s so I get more points than him har har har.
                                                           Sylv


CA                 Reply to Howard and Sylvia

You know, it never occured to me that people would want to score
lots of points and would therefore contribute lots more.
Honest.  Still, you never know, eh?

Unfortunately, you were too late to inform everyone what an
amazing bargain you are, so you seem to be the only one with
you.  But surely that's more reason to score lots of points?!?

Right, you can say hello to yourself, but I won't give you a
point because that's just un-gentlemanly conduct!  You can say
hello to members of your team, by all means.  So if another
Womble does a program and says hi to you, you'll get a point.
Things like 'Hi to all members of Entropy' won't score any
points, you have to specify individual people.

Anything unused that I think should be used is returned to the
author pleading him to change it for me.  No extra points I'm
afraid.  No points for modules because you don't have to put
effort into them, but you do get points for converted modules in
CA                 Reply To Sylvia and Howard

e-tune form.

You were far too sneaky with the old 'holding-back-an-issue'
tactic.  No-one else appears to have done that, but we'll see.

If Sylvia isn't just another sneaky way of entering yourself
twice, Howard, then hi Sylvia.  I really, really hope you beat
Howard after all that preparation he put in.  If Sylvia is
Howard, then it'll all come out in the winning ceremony, so
you'd better sweat boy, and hope you don't win...!









PD                  Review of Boggle Bubble
               Silver Sword Software-Vojta kilma
                                     Jan Kilma
                                     Milan Salajka

Review by Paul Dudley


I picked up this game at the Gloucester show last week from
Derek Morgen at the affordable price of £5. After buying the
rest of the goodies on offer from Fred, Jupiter and Zedd-soft. I
took the long journey home to give the Sam a few hours exercise.
As I played through the games and looked at the utilities I came
across Boggle Bubble and wondered if it was a clone of that
great game Bubble Bobbble.

Now you may not think of this game as great reviewing material
as probably some of you won't even have heard of it. I had the
same view when I first looked at it I thought it was just
another crappy piece of software and that I had been caught out
just like my mate Dean Nicholas (writer of the PD column) when

he bought Safari Sam. In fact they were both from the same man,
Derek Morgen. I was reformed though when I sampled the gameplay
of this adictive little puzzle game and as far as I'm concerned
a good start for Silver Sword (If this isn't their first game I
apologise as I haven't seen any of their other work).

Boggle Bubble isn't a Bubble Bobble clone as I thought so don't
be confused by the title. This game is in fact a puzzle game
along the same lines as Marbles Deluxe an excellent game by
Steven Pick. The game itself has reasonable graphics, not Steven
Pick standard. Though still to a good degree of style and
presentability. The screen and sprites stand out from each other
well and even though the main sprite is not very imaginative it
doesn't spoil the simple but effective graphics in the game.

The idea of the game is to diffuse bombs around the screen and
collect fruit, coins and power-ups (easy I hear you cry) not
though when as you pass over tiles in the floor that disappear
so you cannot backtrack over previous routes. There are numerous
levels which will entertain you for quite a while as the levels

get harder and harder as you progress. The music in the game is
to an ok standard maybe not Quazar but still there is a nice
jingle as you progress. The only problem is after you play it
for a number of times the tune does get on your nerves a bit.
The other problem is no option to save just like Prince of
Persia so you have to do it all in one go. Not a problem though
if you have got a three month holiday coming up after your
G.C.S.E's like I have.

Oh I almost forgot there is one slight very tinny small bug with
the instructions they're in Dutch (I think) Stefan Drissen
shouldn't have a problem with this though.

The sprite movement is a bit annoying as you have to hold down
the key to move the sprite or jab at the keyboard which for a
puzzle game with a timer makes it a bit frustrating. The
gameplay is very addictive just like Marbles Deluxe and kept me
rivited to the computer for quite a while as I ploughed my way
through the levels. The difficulty is just a bit too easy it is
still enjoying but on the first game you will probably get quite

a long way. There are enough levels though so this doesn't
matter so much. So now I bet your all wondering what this madman
is going to give it for the final scores. Ok your not but I'll
tell you anyway. Drumroll please "brummmmmmmmmmmm" and here they
are.

                             Scores

                       Playability   67%
                       Lastability   72%
                       Graphics      71%
                       Sound         62%

                       Overall       68%

Show Report

CA                     'The' Show Report

Right, some may say that putting a show report in this section
is a wee bit cheesy.  A little dodgy.  Boring.  A waste of
space.  Etc.  Well, you're wrong.  Normally, there'd be an
interview, but now I get to speak to lots of people.  I didn't,
but there was the chance.  Anyway, this is such a long, amazing,
detailed show report, that you'll be bowled over.  Maybe.

Oh, I'll just get on with it.


Picture the scene - a phone call from Colin Macdonald a day
before the show telling me to be ready by 8 o'clock on
Saturday morning.  I'm not a very good getter up, so I set the
alarm for 7 o'clock and darted downstairs to the kettle.  A
black coffee later and I was ready for anything.  I got all my
stuff together, had a bit more brekky and looked at the time.

It was ten to eight.  Perfect!  Well done, Ando, you're a fine
example I thought.  I'll just relax in the armchair and wait for

good old reliable Colin Macdonald to turn up.  He'll be here
soon.  8:10 - hmm, he's a bit late.  Never mind, never mind.
8:30 - hmm, he's very late.  Maybe he got lost somewhere.
Still, he'll be here soon.  8:45 - Well, he's late, very late.
Either he's crashed or he's forgotten about me.  Anyway, The
Incredible Hulk is on soon.  Hurrah!   9:00 - The Incredible
Hulk starts.  9:05 - The Incredible Hulk just starts to get
interesting when Colin turns up.  An hour late AND in the middle
of the Incredible Hulk.  Some people are so selfish.

Anyway, for the good of the SAM community, I didn't demand to
watch the rest of The Hulk, and dashed out with Colin to the
car.  It was quite a big expensive car, so we knew it'd get us
there in about half and hour - giving us an hour to set up.

Well, it would've got us there in half an hour if we weren't
stuck behind every slow moving car in the universe.  And if
junctions weren't missing from motorways (it's true, I was using
the map).


We got to Quedgeley village hall at about 10:15, with 15 minutes
to set up the stall.  With such a huge company like FRED, that's
an impossible feat.  OR IS IT???  Yes it is.  Everyone came
piling in at 10:30, and we were still setting up.  Crikey, the
humiliation of it all.  Anyone, someone got me a *FREE* coffee,
so I was dead chuffed.  Eventually, at about 12:30, I got a
breather and managed to scan around the hall to see who was
there.

From the FRED stand, I could see the FORMAT/Revelation stand.
Jenny was there with a big smile as ever, Bob was there trying
to spot the people with the most money to spend.  Some little
kid was there running about leaping over things, and just
generally being far too energetic for my liking. There was no
sign of the infamous Christina this time, so Colin couldn't pay
her for her services again (distributing leaflets, of course).
Format were selling dozens of back issues, as well as all
Revelation titles (boxed!) and of course the new Two-up and some
SAMs on behalf of West Coast Computers.


Next to them was someone, but I don't remember who.  I think it
was a company selling Speccy games.  But I couldn't hang about,
I had the refreshments to get to!  A lovely warm pasty thing and
a can of coke later and I was on my way again.  The notoriously
long and painful climb onto the stage (up some steps) revealed a
couple more companies new to the Gloucester fair scene.  Crashed
had a stand there, and had a good go at flogging a Crashed
T-shirt to me.  But how could I possibly wear a Crashed T-shirt
when I was sporting my usual beautiful knitted FRED jumper?
What were they thinking of!

Moving along, and there was Zodiac magazine.  This issue sported
a rather sexy yellow cardboard cover.  The inside is pretty much
the same as ever, but at least from the outside, it's beginning
to look a lot more professional.

Next I heroically leapt off the stage and nearly fell on that
little kid running about.  "I'll get him next time", I thought.

I then ventured through to the back room.  There was a

splattering of companies here.  Right next to the door was a
bring and buy stall.  Some interesting stuff there - printers,
monitors, etc. but nothing I desperately needed.  Then Derek
Morgan caught my eye.  Mainly because he was running at me
shouting something about killing me.  What a nice man.  Anyway,
he kindly said he wouldn't beat me up until later, so I was
safe.  Sort of.  He dragged me over to his stand.

On Dereks stand was the wide selection of SAM PD and F9 software
stuff.  There were plenty of new titles, so I was saying 'Oh
yes' and 'Ooh, that looks, erm, good' when he pointed me in the
direction of a video camera.  A tap dance later, Derek explained
that he wasn't filming me, but was infact showing off something
he was helping to push - the SAM DIGITISER!  Wow, a digitiser -
back in the limelight after the idea died with SAMCo.  Derek
showed the crowd that had gathered (thanks to my tap dance) an
example of it working, and it was very quick and impressive.  It
took about 8 seconds to do a full screen.  The person has to
stand still (hence, why I couldn't be used as an example), but
if they did, the picture came out really clearly - there's two

examples in the screens section this month.

There'll be more news on the Digitiser as and when we know it.

Moving along now, and I reached Malcolm Mackenzie's stand.  He
was sporting all Phoenix's old titles and one new one - Ice
Chicken.  Ice Chicken looked OK, but was a bit samey for my
liking.  Still, Malcolm had a lot of titles, so good luck to
him.  Stood there too was Dave Ledbury, supposedly not allowed
in the show for one reason or another, but he was there and I
wasn't going to kick him out.  After a brief chat, I made my way
back out to the main hall to check out the rest of what was on
offer.

Colin Piggot was about the next person there, selling as ever
his Quazar Surround system at it's new price, as well as a
Quazar sampler module which let you sample your own sounds.  I
didn't get a chance to play with this, but hopefully I will
soon.


More Spectrum companies later, there was Steve's Software,
showing off an even more updated version of SC_Word with lots
more fancy features and I don't know what.  It's an amazing
program and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to do any
DTPing on the SAM.

Next along was Jupiter.  They were showing off their new Chess
game, which I must admit, appeared to be pretty amazing.  It
didn't look graphically brilliant, but from the people playing
it, it seemed to be intelligent to play against.  That could be
a fine game.  They were also selling SAM C tutorials in little
folders.  I only got to flick through these, but knowing
Jupiter, they would probably have been good.  Overall, an
impressive show for Jupiter Software.

And then we get to FRED.  By this time Derek Morgan was telling
Colin what an evil little critter I am.  The only new thing on
the FRED stand was C Vision, and possibly 'The Best Of FRED'.
As people saw the Best Of FRED, it began to sell like hotcakes,
and we sold out of them by the end of the day.  Could there be

more reason to be buy it??  SAM Vision sold well, as did back
issues again.  As ever, bits and pieces here and there slowly
sold.

Stefan Drissen came strolling up grinning and said something to
me which I'm sure was incredibly funny and witty and probably
involved the word girl, but I don't remember.  Stefan was
secretly selling SAMDacs and MOD players again, and I told him
that I'd buy a MOD player if he put a screen blanker option in
it (which he now has done).

Simon Cooke too was strolling about.  This time he wasn't with
his accelerator board, or his hard drive, or Termite, or etc.,
but he had Based On An Idea, a new technical SAM magazine which
will hopefully be reviewed in time for the next issue.  He was
dishing out review copies, so I snatched one up.  At first
glance, it looks very professional, but I won't say more until
next month.

As well as all the onlooking customers, there was the usual

accompaniment of SAM programmers.  Wayne Coles was there showing
what he'd been doing in the last 6 months.  There's some
promising stuff there, and maybe even a FRED contribution for
next month.  We'll see...

The day ticked over nicely.  It wasn't amazingly busy at all
really, but there was always a few people at the FRED stand.  It
gave Colin and I a chance to have a chat to people this time,
and go over for a quiet sociable drink with various people.

Slowly everyone filed away to catch buses or trains, most I'm
glad to say spending their last few quid at the FRED stand!

At 4 ish, everyone began to pack up, pausing only for the usual
photo sessions.  Then it was all quiet.  We said our goodbyes,
then Stefan, Robert Van Der Veeke, Colin and I headed into town
and to a pub.  I was completly against the idea of course, but
once Colin smells a pub, you just can't stop him.  Anyway, we
all had a couple of fine ales until my train, and then I left
Colin, Stefan and Robert to have a fun night in Gloucester while

I had to get back to Uni the next morning (sob).  Apparently,
the highlight of the night was Stefan trying to (and failing to)
chat up Bob Brenchley's daughter.  Tee hee.

Overall, it was once again a very enjoyable day out in
Gloucester.  FRED will be back in October, but there could well
be up to TWO more shows inbetween that at various parts of the
country.  Keep reading...



There'll be another show report next month by Stewart Skardon
(when I work out how he's saved it) and hopefully a few screens.