Editorial Scene+ #09

Editorial

SCENE+ is published by:
L.C.D.
Prager Str. 92/11/12
A-1210 Vienna, Austria
Tel: (02) 272 34 63 within Austria, or +43 1 272 34 63 from abroad (outside Austria).

All classifieds and advertisements are free of charge, as long as they are related to the Spectrum or SAM, and can be submitted in any form: plain text, screen, animation, etc.

Well hello there! Have you noticed the new main menu yet? (Stupid question—of course you noticed!). I used the font from the last issue (it was a bit slow, though!), for which I'd like to thank J.W. Koning of SGG. However, his modifications made my original menu code so unreadable that a brand-new menu program became necessary. Et voilà, here it is! Now I can easily—if not quickly—create menus using Tasword II, as this time the program is written in compiled BASIC. That’s not particularly ideal for quick tweaks, but oh well, the main thing is that it looks vastly better than before, which increases the appeal of SCENE+.

This issue will be presented for the first time at the club meeting in Filderstadt, which is why I tried to make it look particularly respectable. That begins with the new menu system and ends with the color title picture. But don't worry, I plan to tackle other areas as well, such as the unimaginative text viewer. Oh yes, the galleries have also been slightly modified: the new "SLIDESHOW" option allows you to view all the pictures in sequence without having to return to the menu every time—just press the Space bar to advance.

Regarding Scorpions – Die Maschine: five people did get in touch, but that is very little compared to the effort already invested, and it wouldn't even remotely cover the license costs. So forget about it; to be able to offer the game for 10 DM, I would need at least 50 buyers.

Apparently, Sintech has trouble with software pirates. Word reached me that Sintech's translated version of Color Draw is available for download on the Internet. As far as I know, Sintech already faces enough difficulties supplying us with new software—what kind of jerk sabotages that? (Clearly a PC user—typical, nothing is sacred to them, least of all the Spectrum).

Speaking of PCs: a friend of mine coded a fantastic game for the PC, which he intended to sell to NEO. He regularly scanned his hard drive with the latest antivirus programs, but had to discover the hard way that new viruses are often fresher than the antivirus updates, regardless of what the vendor claims. In any case, an acquaintance of his who regularly surfs the Internet and was supposed to create graphics for the game handed him back an infected disk. And BOOM—three years of work down the drain, including all backup copies, which he foolishly restored back onto the hard drive after formatting it. The virus had copied itself back from RAM onto the hard drive right after the format! The final outcome now rests in the trash bin: a smashed 17" monitor, a destroyed Pentium 120, and various other bits and pieces (after such a fit of rage, loose parts are always left behind). The guy now wants to return to the C64, but I also warmly recommended the Spectrum to him.

A regrettable bug in the last issue: the +D corner did not work properly starting from page 4. This happened because several files were cross-linked and had to be replaced; unfortunately, I picked the wrong version of the BASIC program. However, you can fix it yourself by removing all asterisks in line 9003.

A question for Xterminator of TMG: Did my special moves, which you learned on the film set of "Legacy of the Zer Empire", come in handy? I heard that outside the SUC torture chamber, two boneless and unrecognizable mutilated bodies of guards were found. You aren't still playing the villain in real life, are you? Captain Picard and the Enterprise are currently in the Delta Quadrant and are not expected to be back near Terra Prime for a few months. Tiger's Claw.

N E W S

• Twilight by Ultrasoft will not be distributed by Sintech after all. Apparently, the Ultrasoft team no longer has access to the source code to translate the in-game text into English. Better Dead than Czech? Well, I haven't seen the game myself yet, but some games are playable even in Czech. In any case, that is the decision of Sintech and Ultrasoft!

• Prices for MB02 accessories have changed; some items, such as the printer cable and extra RAM, have become more expensive. Oh, and the first software for MB02 has already been released: ZX-OS/3 (hopefully not as bad as IBM OS/2!), NoroCommander (similar to Norton Commander on the PC, I presume), and Discobolos 1, a format converter between MB02, DP-DOS (?), and MS-DOS (!). There is also a new DOS from Busysoft. Quite surprising when you consider how poor Busy is treated by 8BC, according to what I was told in Poland. What I heard about the MB01 was equally fascinating, though it wasn't a disk interface.

• A few people asked whether the report about the Pentagon was a joke. Here is the official statement from L.C.D., the head of ASC: No! The report on the Pentagon was by no means a joke—it was 100% SERIOUS!

• Galaxy Software announces a new game: WIZARDS GUILD, an adventure game for Speccy and CPC, and supposedly one of the toughest around. Above all, it is not supposed to be one of those "boring" text-only adventures.

• According to PD Power (not yet personally confirmed to me!), Impact PD is no more. Paul Howard now has more time to focus on software development. He is currently writing a kind of Workbench environment for the Spectrum.

• PD Power is now also available through ASC; write to the club address for details. Please do not misunderstand this as abandoning neutrality! ASC remains completely neutral towards Prism PD and Alchem.