EDITORIAL
Hello there !
For once I have decided to write this editorial some time before this issue
comes out so that I don't have to be in such a hurry that I only write ten
lines. The previous issue was released in late April, right after we returned
from EIL2, erm that's already more than five months !!! Still I'm not here to
apologize for such delay, indeed I am proud we have made it once again and
manage to bring you another hopefully interesting issue.
Sure we could have worked faster but.... nope :) As you'll read a bit later on
in the menu there haven't been so many releases after the prolific party held
in Dresden so why rush and review nothing ? That would be nonsense. Now we
have a few good reasons to complete this issue as follow :
> The summer online compo organized by Evil of DHS has been very rich with
entries, 27 if I'm right ! On all accounts this is a good surprise especially
if you take into account that some people could not make it on time, had
troubles or were just too busy. Still as you read this the full megademo
should be out featuring all entries of course.
> Painium Disaster is finally out ! Was it worth the waiting ? Who will sell
me a jagpad ? Who killed JFK ? Some answers are to follow up.
> Another expected game has just made it too : it's ChuChu Rocket ported from
the Dreamcast to the Ste/Falcon by Reservoir Gods. Check it out.
Now for a few specific topics you may want to talk about :
SHARED EDITORSHIP :
As you know ALIVE was born from the collaboration of CiH/Maggie Team and I
StS/LOUD! I wanted to get rid of the UCM past which wasn't mine anyway and
start something new. As it turned out, ALIVE isn't different from UCM (at
least if you consider UCM under my responsibility). Some people may be
disappointed by so few changes and so am I : where is the new and enhanced
shell ? This one is still buggy and looks damm poor on Falcon esp compared to
Chosneck's eye catching interface. Where are the new sections ? Same answer
here :( Doing that was possible but only with an extra help we didn't get :(
the only help the Maggie Team brought us is CiH's great contributions and
support. I won't expect more from them from now on. Also I still assemble the
whole magazine on my own but I don't see how Chris and I could share this
responsibility. So ok things haven't changed a lot but we are here and bring
you new issues when we have enough stuff for a decent diskmag. If you want
to discuss my opinion, no problem, I'm open minded :)
WRITERS :
Things are a bit surprising this time with little contribution from our usual
collaborators still we have enough articles and that is the most important
thing to me. The full writers list can be found in the greetings. Also I
wanted to point out an essential "detail" : as you will see, almost all
articles written by Marss are actually collected from the internet. Uh ? That
sucks ! I don't think so since I enjoyed articles I had never read before.
Besides credits are given to their real authors in these articles tho they
don't appear in the menu. I should also add that several articles he sent me
will never be published here simply because I judged them of too low quality
or little interest for the Atarian community. Last but not least I always
favour 'real' articles and don't hesitate to remove Marss' contributions and
keep them for the following issue when space is needed. If you don't agree
with that or think that 'ripped' articles suck, then don't read them !
WHAT'S A GOOD ARTICLE ?
I'm not going to question articles content but the way they are when I receive
them : usual writers like CiH, Paranoid, or even Dma Sc who often offers a
little extra perfectly know what a good article looks like : tho it's ASCII
formated, all lines are of same length (no trick here, just adding spaces by
hand), important words are highlighted with colors, headline is here and often
pictures are even included. On the contrary articles I get from Marss are just
pasted from webpages and include none of the features mentioned above. Well
it's your decision but if this time I took on me to add spaces, colors and so
forth, for sure I won't do it everytime ! May I recall you that the UCM/Alive
minishell has been out for months, not to forget GGN's Alive Kolor Tagger ?
Don't tell me you cannot use them, it would be such a gross lie. Well as said
before I don't mean to appear as a tyran, give us your articles but not my
fault if some look shitty because no one took time to improve them...
PHIL SPACE
WRITES!
Some unstructured rambling by CiH when there's nothing better to do....
Right then, so it's gone rather quiet from the keyboard of CiH for a little
while past September now. What is going on in his secluded little world, you
may ask, or perhaps not? Anyway, as I've got a few spare minutes on my
hands, I might as well fill some gaps.
For one thing, I have recently moved house. Those really alert people among
you should have spotted this on the Dead Hackers bulletin board back in
September. Also, there is something which warns people about this on my
webpages at 'cih.atari.org' My new snailmail address is available on
request. Meanwhile my 'cih@atari.org' email address has been changed, for
now, to a webmail address, which is otherwise known as :-
'ciholland@talk21.co.uk'
My existing Zetnet address is still there, but anything sent there probably
won't be seen for a while, as my phone line is 'down'. I will be getting
back online eventually, but first I need to get a couple of expensive months
out of the way. These are 'car service', formerly known as November, and
'Xmas', which used to be called December in more innocent times.
So how are you managing this internet access thing without a phone line?
Well, I am borrowing time on other people's PeeCees, in a freewheeling
nomadic or parasitic manner. So a big thank-you goes in particular, to the
lovely Nicky, who lets me on her machine occasionally to do the internet
thingy. Therefore, I am still very much contactable by email, and I may even
get around to replying to the small number that I've received so far soon.
I've got a lurking fear of what will happen when I eventually get back to
using the Zetnet address. Did those mailing lists receive my instructions to
cancel in time? I can just imagine the Alt-party traffic (much of it in pure
Finnish, about events I've no chance of getting to!) clogging up my account,
and pushing everything else out of sight!?
It is a good job that I moved really. I'm now back in Northampton, which
puts me a lot closer to my job, which means much less travelling, and a
great deal closer to Nicky, which she is very happy about! It is generally a
lot cheaper to live, where I am now, which will make things like going to
coding parties next year, a sight easier than might have been the case
before. Just go to be careful with the time spent, my holiday allocation
only goes so far in a year, and there are equally compelling demands on
that precious limited time now (grin!)
The actual 'move' spread itself over three days, the first two days involved
way too much lifting and carrying to be any way enjoyable, but the final day
featured this wonderfully liberating session of taking all my old unwanted
crap down to the dump, literally filling the car with it, hastily
remembering there needed to be room for the driver as well, then taking it
all out again, and repacking it more carefully!
John Hayward and fellow electronic scavengers may note that I did chuck an
ancient sub-VGA monitor that had somehow come into my keeping, but they
needn't get too uptight, as it was just a bit too old, and couldn't ever get
a decent picture off my Falcy...
And what have I been doing since then? Well a gradual process of settling in
to my new address, and deciding where to put things, has given way to a
certain amount of remembrance of times past in a computing sense. For
example, my STe, hidden away for a long time, came back out. Next, I found
an old copy of Audio Sculpture, and an even rarer copy of its weirdly
translated manual. So I spent a happy couple of evenings dabbling with a
modfile made entirely from samples created via the built-in speech synth,
which I may or may not expose to a wider audience? (Please DON'T! - I hear
you all cry!)
This week, my Nemesis Falcy had one of its more stable evenings, and I found
an old copy of the Diskbusters (DBA) mag on a CD-ROM. This was the
groundbreaking fully Falconised issue twelve, with the swish menu shell and
text displayer, that looked like it was going to dominate the Falcon scene
(and this was in the months before Maggie 18 came out!) Shame that it only
lasted for another 2 or 3 issues after that...
Issue twelve of DBA Mag was also the first example of the tri-diskmag co-
operation known as 'Magnetic Interlude'. This was the grand idea for 1995,
which was to build an alliance of the 'top three' diskmags of that era,
Maggie, DBA, and ST News were supposed to combine together in an
unassailable, erm, something.. The fact that the other two were running on
severely limited shelf-lives effectively killed that one off within eighteen
months. Still, Magnetic Interlude, nice name, I thought of that one, I Did!
I also found with a start of dimly remembered surprise, that there were
nascent ASCII-Nation tendencies on show, even this early. You may like to
check out the extract below to see for yourselves.
A unique form of greeting!
((( )))
((( ))) (()) ((( )) ((( )) (( ))
((((()))) (( )) ((( )) ((( )) (( ))
((( ))) (((()))) ((( ((( (((
((( ))) ((( ))) ((( ((( (((
S
SS SS
SS O
SSS S SS SS SSSS SSS
SS SS S SS SS S SS SS S
SS S SS SS S S SS SS S
SS SSS SS SS SS SS SS SSSSS SSSSS
S SS SS SS SS S SS SS SS SS
SS SSSSS SS SS SSS SSSSSS SS SSS
D
DD
DDD A Y !
DD
D
W e h e a r d i t w a s y o u r B i r t h d a y
s o i t s e e m s c o n g r a t u l a t i o n s a r e
i n o r d e r . .
O r i s t h a t c o n d o l e n c e s ? ! ? !
Heerrmm yesss.... In retrospect, you can see where the beast known as ASCII-
Nation really had its birthplace now!
So what else is new? I'm at a unhurried, unstressed, undecided state of mind
at the moment. I'm happy with my Atari stuff, but fancy trying something
new, or an interesting rehash of something old? I've been playing without
any well-defined long term goals at the minute, which is enjoyable for a
time. This may change, but in what direction, I know not as yet, will there
be more Maggie, or more ASCII-Nation, or something else again? I should
think that it will still be Atari scene related, whatever the "something" is
going to be, so don't panic!
On a related note, I should be going to the next Alternative Party, the
third edition of which, will be on the 11th-13th January 2002, in the wintry
environment of Helsinki. There should be more details, hopefully, elsewhere
in this issue of Alive!
Anyway, I still haven't explained the large parts of my free time not
covered by eating, sleeping, casual television, and semi-coherent computing
activities. Well there is this nice large double bed ready for when Nicky
comes over to stay (Heh heh!)
Okay, seeyawll next time!
Time 12.15 - Saturday, October 13th, 'Knucklebuster' playing on CreamSID..
CiH - Alive! - barely ;-)
-------- ooOoo ---------
Now for the final part before you can peacefully enjoy this issue. Let's have
a look at today's situation in our small ATARI world :
What could I say about the current Scene rate of activity ? A bit slow for
sure but we can still expect nice stuff in the next months. As a matter of
fact most crews have now adapted a low profile and prefer to work peacefully
on their projects instead of advertising them and feeling pressured afterwards
and I have to admit it' s a good move. Tho I cannot tell you about all the
things I've been told (hush!) I promise good things are being under progress !
Still one question hangs in my mind : what and where will be the next occasion
to meet Atarian fellows in the next months ? Hum tricky question : there may
be another Error In Line but not in 2002. I'm going to attend the next Paracon
convention organized by Paranoid and mates for sure but then ? There will be
the ALTernative party in January but I don't know how many people will be able
to make it to Finland. Poland isn't the best choice either :( Now I'm dreaming
of another party in Germany (organized by ???) or maybe in Holland (but not
before summer if FUN ever plan to put up another PMP - it could be called Post
Millenium Party this time :) As for French parties they will definitely never
draw European Atarians... Well let's cross fingers and be patient.
As I look back I realize the path we've walked through : damn was the ST born
in 1985 ? Really ? 16 years ago ? I was 11 and that's now the age of my STe !
People pop in and out, bringing their creations to us, making friends and
helping out. I see no reason why we should stop doing things then : we are
creative, motivated (sort of :) and above all we are friends ! Who wants to
get rid of their friends ?? Not me for sure :)
Go now and enjoy AliveCUBE (release date October 14, 2001) ----------- STS ---
|
