Letters Corner 2 (Part 1)

Letters Corner 1

Dear readers of the letters corner, since the number of submissions has increased somewhat this time, I have turned them into two letters corners. If you write diligently, there might even be three or four soon!

L. C. D. - Hello LCD! Now I want to fill your letters corner a little bit. I haven't sent anything for a long enough time. Let's start with your question regarding the gallery and the amount of data on the disks: It’s not the quantity that counts, but the quality. That is not to say that there is anything to criticize about the latter, but you shouldn't bend over backwards just to fill up an otherwise well-filled disk. By the way, if you have someone who codes music files, let us hear some of them. Unfortunately, I have to admit that although I really like hearing the music in demos or from the soundtracker, I am completely untalented when it comes to programming such pieces. And most people nowadays have either a 128er or a corresponding sound module, so perhaps others might be interested in that as well.

Furthermore, I had to read the riot act to two members of the SPC so that they would finally cough up their club dues and the scene doesn't go under just because those who are interested simply forget to say something. (I don't want to name names; the gentlemen know they are meant!) Greetings to WoMo - at the moment I would love to play, but I don't know when! On one hand, there is still enough to do so that new hardware is built again—and the necessary experiments and tests are much more time-consuming than I had imagined in my worst nightmares. On the other hand, the Cologne meeting is slowly approaching. And last but not least—now and then a report or a BASIC article has to be finished, right?

As far as the outfit of the scene is concerned, I am of the opinion: leave it as it is and continue with the other things. Your style is great now. For your film corner, I have also contributed something this time, namely a description of the only old Star Trek episode never broadcast in Germany, "Patterns of Force." So, the description is finished, and I just took a quick look into the Scene and what do I see? There is already music on it. Sorry, I hadn't noticed that before. I would perhaps make the Scenex at the beginning of the year as a review on an extra disk, but that's just an idea—what do the others say? I clearly prefer the monthly appearance, even if I put you in a time crunch because of it. (I am simply too impatient - pardon!)

Since, as you know, I come from the Lower Rhine, the way to Vienna for a club meeting is unfortunately too far for me. But I think those who come from this corner will meet you there if you come to Cologne and/or Filderstadt. Why the politician JOKE? In our government, there have not been any people left for a long time whose brains function. Therefore, I can understand that the medical profession is discussing whether brain death represents the end of life—in Bonn and Berlin, the counter-proof is evident.

So, now back to the important things. I follow the +D corner regularly as an enthusiastic +D user, and especially when it comes to the unknown things, I am grateful for every tip. (At the last club meeting, for example, I learned that the CAT command can also be used specifically for searching for files with certain names. CAT X "A*" for example brings all files with the letter A to the screen.)

Regarding the copy protection of the presented program, I am fully of your opinion. We live in the age of floppy disks, CDs, and hard drives. The cassette is no longer a competitor or alternative. If a manufacturer thinks they have to mess up their programs like that, I hope there are enough hackers who will throw a spanner in their works! (Nothing against copyright, that must be, but not like this: it hits exactly those who have nothing to do with it, namely those who want to transfer their programs to modern media for easier handling.) Pirates have completely different technical possibilities to get at such things. They won't be hit by this in any case. They simply pull the copies tape-to-tape and there is no cure for that anyway (except Leens Lock). If there must be copy protection, then for programs that are already on modern data carriers!

So, finally, a short introduction as far as anyone doesn't know me yet: My name is Peter C. Rennefeld, I come from Mönchengladbach on the Lower Rhine, I am 28 years old and I am an electronics technician in textile machinery construction by profession. I came to the Spectrum from the ZX 81, and I remain loyal to the little brother as well. Until about 1990, my contacts were enough to stay active, but when there was slowly less to nothing at all, I was almost giving up. Then I had a serious accident, through which I had time again to look into the CF. There I found not only a 128er, which I bought, but also read some ads from the Zeddy and Speccy scene. The seller of the 128er (Dieter Schulze-Kaleys) then brought me to the point of calling Cologne. That was in the late autumn of '95. Since then, I have been trying not only to consume the information of the clubs, which in itself is quite interesting, but also, within the scope of my possibilities, to do something to keep it going. Without the contact to the clubs, I would have continued for a while, but as a lone wolf and always with the fear in the back of my neck of losing my last computer as well. (At that time I barely owned an intact, but not modified +2A and a +D - the second computer had dropped out after long use and did not come back from the repair at Uffenkamp.)

Even if it doesn't look like it sometimes, I also have other hobbies, which, however, are suffering greatly from the Spectrum at the moment. Since I am currently solo, there is at least no one there for whom I would have to limit my work, so some things will still be done. Hereby I confess again that I don't have the slightest clue about the machine language of our computers and look full of admiration at those who can set a logo into rotational motion. (That meant the publisher of a certain diskmag.) For me, that will probably always remain a mystery, but instead, I like to tinker with the electronics of the computers and their possibilities, which might not be everyone's cup of tea. With this, I have hopefully introduced myself enough, and bored enough people. That I have nothing against the publication of my address goes without saying. One last idea from me: At least include the current number of members in the masthead. Otherwise, I wish you continued success, both for the Scene+ and in your job, and I remain for today, P.C.R.

Response

Hello Peter, well okay, I will refrain from bending over backwards to fill up the disks in the future. You're right, quality counts, which is also the reason why SCENE+ became the second-best diskmag. I do wonder, however, why it is currently the only German-speaking mag? As far as the music files are concerned, Cat's Eye sent me some, most of them ripped out of demos so that I can incorporate something into my games. I also received quite a lot from Dave Fountain and Paul Howard (Impact Software), maybe I really will introduce a music corner! Hey, that's the idea! But I need someone who constantly supplies me with their works, I will write to Kriss of Illusion about this immediately.

I also have a hardware project in the works, namely a track display for (almost) all disk interfaces, but a lot is still going wrong there and I don't know when it will be finished, because when I have some time, I write for SCENE+. Well okay, after some small changes like adding a music corner, I will keep the style until Johan thinks of another improvement, and those then come by the dozen. I wouldn't do Scenex that often either, but Guido wants me to save a Scenex onto the mag every month. Do you know how hard it is to work with a knife at your throat? I know it now, in any case. If Thomas wasn't playing an April Fool's joke, that will soon be unnecessary anyway.

SCENE+ will of course continue to appear monthly, I was threatened that if SCENE+ didn't appear monthly, Thomas would throw me into the torture dungeon instead of X-Terminator and do the worst things to me, e.g., I would have to write the demo corner until I get as old and grey as X-Terminator. Since only two people wanted to come to the meeting in Vienna, the meeting is currently dead, but as far as I know, I will be there at the meeting in Cologne; as for Filderstadt, I heard that we, as retail employees, won't get any vacation days from November on because of the Christmas business! November 15th is therefore unfortunately out of the question and because I cannot possibly be there, it will probably not be an "international" meeting this time! (I hope Thomas reads this!)

Well okay, the jokes about politicians could also go too far, or do you already know this one? In Trier, a person was born without a brain; his parents said about the goal of the little one's education: He will undoubtedly be a politician! In other professions, you need a brain after all. Now, however, enough of slandering brainless politicians, slimy lawyers, and other parasitic vermin.

The undocumented commands of the +D are indeed interesting, for example, I discovered that MERGE and VERIFY with P(nr) work just as well as LOAD, but it doesn't work with ERASE and SAVE, but I myself was also of the opinion that my Disciple was not working correctly because I couldn't copy files. The manual said something about COPY d1"*" TO d2, but only from the +D manual did I learn that the SAVE command works instead of COPY. With the copy protection of Quadrax, I got really angry at Busysoft. I buy a game at the club meeting, want to copy it to the +D at home, but it crashes because the +D is connected. But since I've been cracking for years, this was only a minor obstacle for me and only cost me two hours of work to crack it. One thing is certain, programs without copy protection are preferred because I am a fan of fast loading times. From next time on, I will do it this way: If I buy a game that has copy protection, I will crack it and distribute it for...

...free to everyone who proves they have the original (for example, if they send it to me). After a short time, every coder will realize that copy protection only causes work and achieves nothing. By the way, I still laugh today about the ridiculous copy protection of the Rainbow Arts game "Rock'n Roll"—once you know how it works, it's just a matter of minutes.

I was afraid of losing my Speccy too, until the moment I was able to stock up on a few units. At one point, there were ten little black Spectrums. In the meantime, I've learned how to repair at least the 48k models, but if the price increase of Z80A CPUs continues like this... At the moment, in terms of working machines, I have two 48k models (Issue 4S and 6A), two original Sinclair 128ks—one of them in a PC minitower! (The "Euro" version with a standardized RS-232 interface)—and then another +2A modified by myself. The broken computers lying around my place are without exception only 48k models that I either received broken or sent to computer heaven myself thanks to my tinkering. Only one of them was lent out and returned broken.

Regarding the rotating logo: Well, with VU-3D and an image compressor, anything is possible. I admit that I don't know much about MC either, but in parts, it's still enough for some interesting effects. If I had someone who would teach me step by step how to write more complex programs, I would be very happy.

Thanks again for writing.