.:. .:. . .::. . .:. .:. .:. .:.
.@@@.@@@. .@' .@@@@. .@' .@@@.@@@. .@@@. .@@@.
.@''@@@''@. .@' .@''''@' .@' .@''@@@''@. .@.:.@. .@'''@.
.@' '@' '@. .@' .@' '@' .@' .@' '@' '@. .@'@@@'@. .@'..'@@.
'@@' : '@@''@@''@@' '@''@@' '@@' : '@@''@@ ''' @@''@@@@@@'@.
''' '' '' '' ' '' '' '' '' '' '':'''.@'
'@...@'
'@@@'
'''
"I feel like Mini Mag Tonight! Mini Mag Tonight!!"
E d i t o r i a l . .
We're back, after a pause which feels as long as a middling custodial
sentence at her majesties pleasure, which is kind of what happened to the
editorial staff of the mini-mag, errmm. It might only have seemed like a
casual nipple tweak, but I warned the others that the authorities could
still get positive dna samples from it, and of course they take those things
*very* seriously in Islamic countries as well! But would they listen to me?
would they hell!
Still, we're back, even if we're a little unsteady on our feet, and bright
lights, loud noises, and sudden movements caught by our peripheral vision
frighten and disorientate us...
S c e n e - N e w s . .
Atari Forum BBS stays working..
Amid scenes of total amazement, the Atari Forum BBS continued working this
week. Veteran Atari botherer and real-ale fan MUG UK observed "It's been
days now since it started working. I've been able to login and post, and
read replies without problems. Whatever happened to the good old Atari Forum
BBS, which was always offline due to hacking attacks?!" There was no
official response from the admin team at Atari-Forum, but Requiem was
overheard muttering an apology, and promising that they would be offline
without warning again shortly.
Heftig Diary updates..
15.4.05 - Ultra.
"Held Cream meet over the weekend. Very good results all round. I decided to
rework the diary entry where I go on about coding the reset part so it is
eight percent smaller and 1.5 seconds quicker to read. Agent T will come up
with some new excuses for delays over the next weeks. I am motivated to do
more diary entries, with new forms of words in them, but let's see if the
heavy clubbing will take its toll?"
Hugi goes tabloid..
In a move which surprised no-one, the PeeCee diskmag 'Hugi' has announced a
decision to go for a populist tabloid press format. Hugi editor Adok says,
"People, especially me, got tired of that endless miserable whining that
goes under the title of 'Scene Philosophy'. So from the next issue on, we
decided to drop all of that, and bring you reams of mindless upbeat trivial
shit instead!" We are looking forward to the new disk, which will be
distributed with a red top label, and the new features, such as the page
three naked scener, which takes a candid camera eye view of silicon-
enhanced drunken demosceners out on the town.
New compo for Outline '05..
Times change, and so do priorities. With increasing maturity, many people
are now caught up in the whole home ownership deal. To take this into
account, the organisers of Outline '05 announce a new competition. This is
the 'Home Beautiful 96k' competition. The challenge being to design the
loveliest kitchen in a file size restricted 96k format! For extra points,
this must be done without a computer, which must be hidden in cardboard
boxes for several months. We expect some strong entries from pre-compo
favourites Cyclone and Sh3!
C o m m e r c i a l N e w s . .
Microsoft patent the "Unngh!" sound that people make, when something
destined for the gastro-intestinal tract, goes into the lungs instead.
Microsoft intend to police this newly acquired intellectual property
fiercely, so anyone who chokes to death may find their estate being sued for
patent abuse!
Microsoft's attempt to patent the act of 'breathing' was defeated in the US
Supreme Court yesterday. However, their ongoing attempt to make people pay
for fresh air is still ongoing. STOP PRESS! Microsoft counter-sued by Apple
Corp over making people pay for fresh air case, "That's our job!" huffed an
aggrieved Apple Corp press officer.
G a m e R e v i e w s . .
All formats game charts
1. 'Harry Potter and the stolen burnt-out car..' - Nintendo Warlock.
2. 'Codename Brown Foreskin..' - Sony Yob, Sinus laptop, Sega Dreamcrust.
3. 'Turbo Bottom-hunt 20th anniversary remix..' - Sinclair ZX95.
4. 'Encarta Encyclopaedia Ritual Killing add-on pack.' - Every bloody thing.
5. 'Chuchu Socket..' - Powergen and compatibles
'Firewall Updater of Doom!' (Polyplay '060)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is the first new game for the Polyplay Arcade machine, the former East
German manifestation of 1960s technology in a 1980s setting. "Firewall
Updater of Doom" is a arse-rending simulation of the average Western Wintel
PeeCee user's struggles to keep their system virus and trojan spyware-free
in the face of ever increasing attacks. The game logic seems to be ripped
wholesale from the immortal "Catch the drips in a bucket or drown" game.
There are minimal graphical changes, as buckets are redrawn as system
patches and service packs. But it does accurately convey the existential
futility, which is the whole point.
Honnecker (Un)Interactive - 17 old style ration coupons.
'Escape from Guantanemo Bay!' (Rumsfeld 500)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So you've been saving all your money, to catch the Marrakesh express, and
wear flowers in your hair? Well it was bad luck that you got captured in a
US Special Forces anti-terrorist sweep, out there in the Sahara Desert. Now
armed only with a purple boilersuit and a shoeful of plastic explosive, you
have to break out of the feared maximum security and deniability holding
camp at Guantanemo Bay! Pick up razor-sharp legal arguments why you
shouldn't be held there, and watch the fearsome blundering guards ignore
them all! The endgame part hasn't been written yet, and won't be for
decades..
Ministry of Fear Developments - $17 billion
'Jet Set Jahinder' (ZX Thirdworld)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's another golden oldie, given a dusting off and corporate makeover.
Miner Willy has been kicked out of his job, and this has been given to
Jahinder. He can work much more cheaply, and in worse conditions than Willy
could ever manage! There are some improvements over the original Speccy
classic. You get many more lives to carelessly squander. But some classic
bugs, such as the 'repeated deaths through unsafe working practices' glitch
are happily kept in! Minutes of life-expectancy for all the family. If they
can walk, they can work!
Transglobal Mining and Entertainment Software Corp - 1.17 Rupees (per hour)
D e m o R e v i e w s . .
The Onion Megademo!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Self-reviewed by solo2) Hola! This is the greatest demo on Atari ever! No
more simple dumb screens, but a whole lot of them collected together in a
mega demo. We call this the "Onion" mega demo, after my favourite vegetable!
It has a walk around menu, and a user controlled sprite called "Kylie". We
are looking forward to guest screens from Deltic Force and the all time
coding legends, The Uncaring Bears! Derivative? Not us!
Music demo special!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The ST-Connexion modfile/YM replay routine has been brought up to date. It
now features in the latest CT60 music demo. it now replays at 500khz sound
quality through the previously poor YM chip. Playback is across seventeen
audio channels, five of them only audible to Pipistrelle bats and dogs. All
cpu time is used, apart from some left for the orange indicator bars.
In this issue, we also bring you the YM Rockers debut into CT60 demo making.
Their rather aptly named "Broot Force" demo features a simulated YM
soundchip, of 128 channels (sixteen of them dedicated white noise), 3-D
sound imaging, and 24-bit square wave sound quality. Using this fantastic
new system, there are some great ziks by all your favourite zik artistes,
Pongo Snodgrass, Scheme, and Dwayne Dibbley...
'Increase yr sprite pow4r, day upon day increase, or yr $$$ back!'
With Dr Leonard's miracle sprite booster potion, increase your self-esteem
and sexual attraction to the oldschool coding community. Our easi-pay low
cost instalment plan, at 17.99 per month, can soon have you incrementally
increasing your sprite record attempts, and annoying the hell out of the
rest of the scene!
It also makes your penis grow...
Order from www.wishfulthinkingandtwisteddreams.com
U t i l i t i e s . .
"File Brothel" v1.5, by Chosneck Productions Inc. The latest in hard disk
file management software for the heavy internet "specialist" user. It can
take the typical male internet user's disorganised adult picture collection
spread across their hard disk, and place it automatically into neat and
logical easy-to-follow directories. Typical examples might include folders
for 'Boy/girl', 'girl on girl', 'girl on labrador cross-breed', or even
'Michael Jackson's day on the beach'. (Caveat, this final option can run
only with "Nonce 1.3", and "Beat me up in prison v2.0" service packs
installed.)
'5peek and 5pam' - The easy to use tool, to duplicate the spammer's strange
way of talking to you in email headers. You too can tell the world of
"vifourgra for yr penones", or even learn to talk in a pseudo machine-code
like they do... "&(*DkLDŁ(!2", as they say in Florida! aNywaY, 1t 4ll l@@ks
a 2ny b1t '7337' 4nd str33t and c00l, so it must rool da house, right?
C l a s s i f i e d A d s . .
Thinly renamed former pile-em-high-sell-em-cheap outfit wishes to sell a
rare collectible Atari 'ST-Book' (R@RE! L@@K!) Asking price is 1500 UKP,
shipping to the corner of the street is free, anywhere further is extra.
Sensible offers only please. We've been severely let down by time-wasters,
aka 'window shoppers' on Ebay previously. No pointing and laughing please.
Contact Gas(teiner) Computers.. (Oh Bugger!)
A n n o u n c e m e n t . .
There is no poverty in Africa. The reason that there is no poverty there, is
down to lots of relatives of rich princes and ex-government ministers who
can't get their money out of the place. The net worth of these people is
estimated to be $340 trillion, the 40% of which they are so keen to share
with you, will buy every village in Africa a diamond encrusted clean water
supply and goat feeder. This happy state of affairs would come about
tomorrow if they were inclined to be more generous to their own people,
rather than just emailing random westerners and pleading to them to take
this cashload off their hands...
Unless it's all just some sad fool of an exchange student, sitting in a
Cybercafe in downtown Rotterdam who's making this stuff up?
H a r d w a r e . .
We feature the latest development from Apple, the Mac Pico (Very mini!) This
is the smallest home or personal computer ever made! Many years ago, back in
1985, Steve Jobs gave an interview for "Big Pow!" magazine, in which he
stated that his ultimate goal was to get a Macintosh into a shirt pocket.
Now with the recent release of the Mac Mini, he has almost got there, albeit
you will still need a very big shirt pocket. Now Minimag likes things that
are named after us, sort of, and we are pleased to take an exclusive first
look at the next generation even more mini system from Apple,the 'Pico'.
When Steve Jobs said "A computer for every thumbnail", he wasn't joking..
The Mac Pico features a scaled down but perfectly functional version of
their PPC and MacOS combination. It has a tiny processor, an even tinier
hard drive, and a special keyboard which can be worked by tweezers. It's not
as if Apple have skimped on their famously good build quality, as we are
reliably informed that each Mac Pico is carefully handmade - On the wing of
a gnat!
It comes pre-loaded with the world beating 'iShrink' and 'iGetaLife'
software, and is priced at an amazing 0.30 Eur, or a candy bar from Lidl.
This unprecedented price breakthrough comes because certain economies to the
basic design have been made. You will need to add a monitor, keyboard,
mouse, cpu, memory, hard drive, and a suitable box to take them all.
The range of uses that such a compact design can be put to, outside of the
traditional home/office environment, is mind-boggling. Some dedicated
hardware modders, have even set up a micro-minature webcam on a Pico, and
swallowed it whole, with the live wireless video feed being relayed in a
fantastic voyage fashion down the digestive tract, right the way from first
swallow to final excretion!
Truly the future of computing Apple style, is minature, and accidentally
trodden on..
P r o b l e m C o r n e r . .
Ask our Hardware agony aunt Madam Stimpy!
My CT60 keeps tripping out, approximately ten to fifteen minutes after first
switching on. I suspect an overheating problem between the cpu and the
SDdram, what do you think?
Tripping out young man? Well it's what comes of letting your CT60 have
access to drugs in the first place! A liberal 'do as you please' policy
always backfires. True, the majority grow out of it, but there is a minority
who get truly addicted, and before you know it, the CT60 is stealing money
from your mum's purse to fund its nasty habit. You'll soon be knee-deep in
EtherNat, revision 6 cpu, and ultimately the hard stuff, like Supervidel!
F i c t i o n . .
(From the Tymewarped Readme file, the version of tYMewarp that got made in a
parallel universe!)
The YM-Rockerz, Lotek Style, Tao, 505, Crazy Q, Exocet, gwEm, drx, Damo,
Nemo and Dma-Sc, were enjoying one of their rare meetings at a seedy
cafe in Hamburg. While Lotek Style and Crazy Q were busy setting a high
score on Sega Rally, Tao, gwEm and Damo were pointedly arguing over
YM optimisations.
The sky outside grew darker and darker as clouds went across the summer
sky, rain started to fall and almost simultaneously the rumble of
thunder reverberated through the grim locale.
"Bloody Hamburg weather", cursed gwEm, "its worse than London here..."
But his bitter complaining was cut short by a blinding flash of electricity
as lightning struck the Sega Rally machine simultaneously with Crazy Q
hitting 88mph. Lotek Style was thrown from the machine, hair energised into
an afro bigger than Bootsy Collins when he was still playing for James
Brown.
But something had changed! The storm had gone, the passers by had
different fashions, the furniture in the bar was different, and where the
Sega Rally machine once exisited a strange arcade console loomed.
Slowly, our heroes became aware of a small group of strange looking people
cowering in the corner. The source of their trepidation was standing just a
short distance away from them, and drunkenly slashing the empty air with a
knife.
"Look, it's CiH, Mr Pink, and some other people we don't know!" exclaimed
Damo. 505 looked thoughtfully at a nearby calender on the wall. "It's Easter
1996!" He muttered, "And if I'm right, these are the guys that came from the
UK to the Symposium 1996 party!" he added. "And it's right about now that
they had the run-in with the drunken knifeman in the Hauptbahnhof cafe!"
Nemo helpfully reminded. Clearly his recollection of events, described in
the Symposium party report in Maggie 20, was spot on.
At this point, the 1996 Team Atariscene noticed the new arrivals...
"It's MC Laser with a funky afro bigger than Bootsie Collins!" Yelled Tat.
"But I'm Lotek Style!!"
"No, you're definitely MC Laser! So is that afro part of a new image then?"
"Erm no, the afro is accidental, and we're coming from the future, the year
2005 actually."
The 1996 party chose to believe this frankly unlikely turn of events, and of
course, they were bursting with curiousity to find out how the future had
turned out.
"I'll bet pc's are still as lame then as they are now!" Kev "Taff" Davies
spoke for all the 1996 party. Tao nodded in silent agreement, not wanting to
give away the fact that for most day-to-day things, they were now heavily
dependent on that despised platform.
"How's the Centek Phenix doing?" queried Mr Pink. "Tell us about all the
cool stuffs that were written for it!"
The 2005 Atarians giggled uncomfortably, and quickly changed the subject.
"We're the YM Rockerz, we make cool demos for the ST and Falcon, with some
wicked YM scorching tunes! It's where we're at in 2005!" gwEm declared.
The 1996 party were very surprised by this news. "I imagined that the future
would be bright, and made of 64 channels of sampled sound?!" Taff grumbled.
"Oh but wait 'till you get to try some of our new ziks!" Dma-SC retorted.
The knifeman spoke up, perhaps a little unhappy at being ignored. "Hey, I'm
German and you're not!" The reply was swiftly forthcoming en-masse. "Oh piss
off, you sad lamer!" He sulked off to the cafe exit, seeking more
attentively considerate prey.
"And what else happened in that time?" asked Arnel. "We're dying to know.
Anyone got any lottery numbers?"
gwEm responded firmly and to the point. "Well we're not really supposed to
tell you anything. It could cause all kinds of problems with the timestream
and stuff, hell, we're not supposed to be here! But tell you what, I'll give
you a clue for a really big scary happening that kicks off in a few years."
He grimaced, drew his hand across his throat in a cutting motion and uttered
the fateful words, "NINE-ELEVEN!!"
The 1996 posse looked around blankly..........
**Directors cut!** Alternative ending follows!
gwEm responded firmly and to the point. "Well we're not really supposed to
tell you anything. It could cause all kinds of problems with the timestream
and stuff, hell, we're not supposed to be here! But tell you what, I'll give
you a clue for a really big scary happening that kicks off in a few years."
He grimaced, drew his hand across his throat in a cutting motion and uttered
the fateful words, "PRINCESS DI!!"
The 1996 posse looked around blankly..........
I n t e r v i e w . .
We bring you this exclusive off-the-record chat, becoming on the record
again which is naughty of us, but I think you'll find the end-result is
worth it!
We talk to Hank Wangstrangler III, the CEO of Boybandexploiter Records,
about their exciting new range of anti-piracy technologies, shortly coming
to a marketplace near you, whether you want it or not... Hmmm,
MM - "Hank, I guess you're pretty concerned about the impact of online
piracy on your revenue stream, right?"
H - "Concerned isn't the word for it, pissed off is! Those communistic
freeloading downloading scum are denying me my American birthright of making
money hand over fist for minimal effort!"
MM - "Your attempt to introduce Texan style legal penalties for worldwide
copyright infringements failed. Even with the presence of several USN
carrier groups hovering just off the continent of Eurasia, was there ever
any realistic prospect of their national parliaments being panicked into
accepting proposals for vigilante knee-cap shooting justice as a minimum
sanction?!"
H - "George Dubya is a good ole' boy, and he had the muscle in place and
ready to go. It's those whiners in Congress who blocked us, claimed it was
"unconstitutional", whatever the hell that is?"
MM - "So having been thwarted in making favourable situation changes in the
geopolitical sphere, you turned to technology for an answer?"
H - "Yeah, we developed a new range of anti-piracy techniques, to apply
directly to the media itself. Our digital encoding uses a special encrypting
technique that prevents any kind of reproduction from it."
MM - "You believe that your system is the most secure on the market? How
good is it really?
H - "Well if you try to copy from an audio CD protected with our system, you
will fail totally. Whether you try to grab tracks digitally, or even using
old fashioned analogue copying techniques to tape, none of it will work.
Hell, we've even got it covered, so that if people listen to it, and try to
freeload by 'remembering the tune', all they will hear off the disk is a
white noise slush!"
MM- "Err, thank you, and good night!"
H - "Wait, don't you want to hear about our "Shut your gob" initiative,
where public spirited volunteers take cash payments from the recording
industry to have their lips sewn shut, preventing them from accidentally
whistling a copyright protected hit tune..." Fades into the distance...
T r a v e l . .
Why not try this refreshing alternative to the usual run of coding parties.
Dr gwEm's awesome time travel demo party excursion!
We all go on a trip, in our big blue Eurolines bus, fitted with a laws of
physics defying gizmo. This was made from a lightning-damaged Sega Rally
arcade machine, and has been successfully tested, according to gwEm!
A time travel trip back to 1945 is planned. This will be a nostagic visit to
Alan Turing's first coding party. Boggle in amazement as he unpacks and sets
up the newly launched portable version of the Colossus computer, from
several heavy lorries!
Smile wryly as he runs out of power sockets. Stumble over the inevitable
misunderstanding when he fails to understand that you aren't a nazi spy. And
finally, watch the very first wild competition when Alan shows off
effortless fancy sineous tape loop scrollers, from behind the window bars of
an authentic period prison cell, shortly before your execution!
T e h E n d . .
The fat lady DOESN'T sing! "If she's singing, she's infringing copyright!" A
record company executive declared.
, .
\ /
____ .#####. .-- - - -----
'`. ## #### .'| UH OH!
. | ######### | | Game over!
|.' ######### ' |
____' # ## # # `-__________ __
# # # #
# # # #
CiH, for Alive Mag,Various '05..
|
