Letters
P.C.R.
Hello LCD, MG, 5.11.96
You haven't heard from me for a long time, which doesn't mean that I'm not involved anymore. After a long time, I was finally able to put my computer back into operation and just quickly wanted to write to Austria to let you know that I'm still around. First of all, I'd like to tell you that I managed to check out Scene and that I am very thrilled!
If Thomas Eberle thinks your mag has the disadvantage that you can't read it on the bus, I'd like to say that the only reason I noticed it at all (and that was before Cologne) was BECAUSE it's a PLUS D mag. (Besides, I never ride the bus!) I just enjoy seeing the whole thing live and in color on the screen. Above all, I like the clear layout and structure. So—keep it up! Maybe I'll even manage to do one of the announced game reviews this year. Furthermore, I can (if you want) contribute some pictures from Mönchengladbach for your gallery. Otherwise, I'd be interested to know if any new members have found their way into the club.
So—now I'll call it a day and quickly send greetings from the Lower Rhine to Austria.
P.C.R.
P.S.: Keep an eye out for my letter in the next SPC (re: "Aktion").
Reply from LCD
Hello Peter,
Thank you very much for getting in touch after all, good to know you're still around! I have already refuted Thomas's opinion that you can't read my mag on the bus. What you need for that is a laptop and a Speccy emulator; thanks to the finer resolution, the letters are even easier to read! Or someone builds themselves a laptop Speccy! But quite right! Why should anyone ride a bus anyway when you can drive a car just as well. You'll hardly be reading a Speccy mag while doing that, will you?
The bus thing was probably meant in the sense that you can show all the other passengers that you're still on the Speccy, and knowing how people are, others won't pay attention, or the PC users will laugh at you—at least until they catch a virus, because then the Spectrum users are the ones laughing!
Yes, live and in color, that's what defines a diskzine; glad to hear I hit your taste, also regarding layout issues. Besides, I plan to incorporate some suggestions from Johan Koning into the Christmas issue, which include further layout improvements, but I have already more than doubled the speed of the text printing routine.
I'm already curious about the pictures and contributions, the more the better.
New members, yes, one, and another one is interested too, but I have trouble deciphering his handwriting; it's almost as bad as mine, and so of course I don't know where to send the info. After all, I'm a programmer and not a pharmacist who can decipher illegible handwriting; taking this opportunity to address the rest of the folks: Please write your letters either legibly or on the computer.
Alright then, I hereby return the greetings and hopefully see you soon.
L.C.D.
WoMo-Team
Hello LCD!
Sorry that it really took a long time this time before we got in touch again. However, we weren't idle or on vacation; it was rather that so much had been left undone and merely catching up, e.g. with the mail, held us up endlessly. There is still enough to do, but now it's SCENE's turn first.
The latest issue of Scene we have is No. 9. Which probably means that not everything is working out time-wise for you either, because actually you wanted to be "back on track" with issue 10. We completely understand.
Good news first. There will be (for now?) no further dispute with the leadership of the SUC. By mutual agreement. Which doesn't mean, however, that we backed down in any way or retroactively agree to everything. By no means whatsoever. Rather, it is the realization that this squabbling does no good for us or the users.
With that, the question of whether someone finds such a dispute good or bad is also moot. In principle, disputes rarely have anything good about them, unless one is "disputing" constructive concepts.
As you rightly wrote, we are close to Andy Davis and thus to Alchemist. Very close, in fact. When we first got in touch with Alchemist, we noticed that our views were very similar. That hasn't changed to this day. We both profited greatly from each other through PD and information exchange.
It's a different story with Prism PD. Here, too, contact was supposed to take place. And because we felt that both sides should be heard, we asked Mr. Sherwood for a statement and also asked him some other questions, e.g. regarding the PD exchange for the SAM. We received no answers to our questions, nor regarding the SAM exchange, but instead lots of "Fact sheets" (fuck sheets) and tirades of hatred against Andy Davis. We didn't reply to any more of these letters. Obviously, Mr. Sherwood is so annoyed by this that he has recently started trying to disparage us in England. Unfortunately, he overlooked the fact that we are members of a strong connection. We will certainly know how to defend ourselves. Still, we are slowly getting sick of becoming the target of jealous groups. Everyone should just do "their" work.
Enough of that. Question for you: When is "Not for Children II" coming out? At the moment, the erotic demo market is "booming", and you also received "Fun Royal" from Holland. But whether that is something for your diskmag, we find doubtful. Well—these kinds of demos are available through any good PD library (including ours). Besides "Fun Royal", there was also "Gorkidemo 2" and brand new now "Paris Fun", which we are sending along to you.
New demos have also arrived from Lithuania again; after all, there was a huge coder party in St. Petersburg. Here, demos are still awarded prizes, but that also means that demo coders have to subject themselves to fixed rules. For example, pure animation demos are not allowed; animations may at most be a part of the demos.
Somehow I particularly like the music in these demos, that is, when it runs properly. Do I have a Russian soul? Who knows. We are sending you some of these as well; we haven't checked all of them ourselves yet. Ah, if only the whole world had the Plus D! Copying from cassette to disk is always a "joy" (the other way round even more so).
Take from it for Scene whatever you can use.
Finally, we'd like to greet all readers of this diskmag and certainly, in LCD's spirit as well, call for a bit more cooperation. The Spectrum lives!
In this spirit, see you soon,
the WoMo-Team
Reply from LCD
Hello WoMo!
Well, um, it's extremely embarrassing to me, because the delay of the last issue was solely due to my hospital stay; guess I'm not as high-voltage-proof as I thought. At the next meeting I'll show you the burns, unless they heal by then.
I didn't particularly like the dispute with SUC either. It left a bitter aftertaste and certainly would have ruined the scene in Germany. After talking with Johan Koning, however, I will refrain from any official statement and remain neutral from now on.
There are always positive aspects to a conflict, e.g. a war. Please don't consider me hardhearted now, because in reality I'm a pacifist, but just consider what would have happened if there had been no wars since the beginning of mankind, but the earth had been a paradise without murder and war. The population would now be so large that only a few wouldn't starve, or have a roof over their heads, not to mention the energy supply. Naturally, I can hope that there will never be war again and that our food will never run out.
Andy Davis and Prism PD have been at war for a very long time. Personally, I've never written to him, but in return I receive letters from Martyn Sherwood from time to time. Surely Andy has a larger PD library, but he was already very close to quitting entirely. Martyn sends his Fact Sheets to everyone, and that he is trying to do something against SPC is not true, because after all he printed your new address, which I sent him. Still, I can't understand why he doesn't answer your letters; I suppose I'll have to confront him about it. Personally, I hold nothing against either Martyn or Andy.
I still have some work to do on "Not for Children II", but you know how much time I have left thanks to SCENE+; in any case, I've already digitized all the pictures and showed them at the meeting in Filderstadt (that's why I got Royal Fun Demos!). This time I paid more attention to the quality of the pictures. I'm still considering whether to write the demo as 128K only or multiload; then there's still the problematic music, because the sample tracker only loads from tape and doesn't have enough space for samples. Aside from that, something as important as sample loop is still missing in that program. Maybe I can manage NFC II for issue 12 or 13, but as already mentioned, I'm working on the Patience game and on Legacy. Plans for "Akte-X: The Reunion" exist as well.
Too bad Russia is so far away and unsafe, otherwise I could look around at the democoder competition there; I myself am unfortunately not that gifted in that direction, although you can see from the intro of this issue that I've improved significantly. Animations are still my strength and there will be plenty of them in Legacy.
I've always liked Russian culture and especially the music, and while I'm into classics (Chopin, Bach, Mozart...) just as much as modern music (Techno, Rave...), Russian music still has something cheerful about it that makes you want to dance. I'm curious about Flashtracker; if the music runs on interrupts, it would certainly be better than any other music program, including SQ-Tracker.
Yes, it would certainly be nice if the whole world had the +D, and one were built permanently into every Pentagon. By the way, I talked to a Polish guy who bought a Pentagon. Well, allegedly the picture rolls from top to bottom on German TVs because the synchronization is different; I'd need more electronics knowledge to do something about that.
Alright then, thanks for the call to action, I just hope someone follows it.
"The Spectrum lives, especially here! On SCENE+."
— Lothar Ebelshäuser, Grasegger Str.49, D-50737 Köln, 28.10.96
Hello LCD,
Warm greetings from Cologne. Finally I found some time again to write to you. First of all, huge praise for your disks. They are simply super well done every time. I do have two questions for you, though.
- On the latest disks there are two games (Auto Concentration 8/96 and Godzilla 9/96). Both games are supposed to run with a Kempston Joystick. However, in both games the upwards movement with the joystick doesn't work. Did I do something wrong, or is the bug in the program? Unfortunately, I haven't detected one so far. Maybe others have noticed this already too. In any case, I would be very grateful if you could help me with this problem.
As a second question, the following. At the computer meetup in Houten, I got a few books with Spectrum programs. In Dutch, of course. Now I'm in the process of typing these programs in and translating them into German. Would you be interested in these programs once they're finished? It's nothing amazing, but quite nicely done nevertheless. Maybe you can use them on your disks.
Well, that's it for today. Warm greetings from Cologne once again!
Lothar
Hello Lothar, warm greetings from Vienna as well. Thanks for the praise for SCENE+, I really put a lot of effort into it and it often brings me to the brink of madness. I barely have time for other things, and the constant tinkering is sometimes even life-threatening. Here are the answers to your questions:
1: I tested both Auto-Concentration and Godzilla thoroughly before they were released, and in both games the upwards direction worked fine in Kempston Joystick mode. The fault is clearly not with you or in the program, but it could very well be that the interface is defective. Even more likely would be a defect in the joystick, unless it is a "microswitch" model. With the Quickshot 2, it once happened to me that two metal contact leaves broke off when I played DALEY THOMPSON too much. In this case, it would help if you had another interface. If the fault persists with a second interface, the joystick is defective. In case the interface should turn out to be defective, there is a circuit schematic for a Kempston interface in one of the early SCENE+ issues, which I built myself.
2: Yes, sure! I am always interested in neat programs (at least some collaboration). Actually, I would also be interested if it were something amazing. By the way, my latest Patience program will be finished soon, something lighter this time, but the programming standard is even higher, as there is supposed to be an autoplay option (hopefully, I'm working on that again right now). So much for that topic, have fun with the games once your joystick works again.
Greetings
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