Letters: Part 2.1

Letters 2 - Part 1

Dear readers of the letters corner, since there was a bit more correspondence this time, I turned it into two letter corners—if you keep writing diligently, there might soon be three or four! L.C.D.

Hello LCD! Time for me to fill up your letters corner a bit. After all, it's been long enough since I last sent anything. 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's not to say there's anything to complain about regarding the latter, but you shouldn't do crazy gymnastics just to fill up an otherwise well-stocked disk.

By the way, if you know someone who codes music files, let us hear a few of them. Unfortunately, I have to admit that while I really enjoy listening to music in demos or from Soundtracker, I'm completely untalented when it comes to programming such pieces. And most people by now have either a 128K machine or a corresponding sound module, so others might be interested in that as well.

Besides that, I had to read the riot act to two SPC members so they'd finally cough up their club membership fee and the scene doesn't go under just because those who are interested simply forget to speak up. (I won't name names, the gentlemen know who they are!)

Greetings to WoMo—right now I'd love to play some games, but I don't know when! On the one hand, there's still plenty to do so that new hardware gets built again—and the necessary experiments and tests are far more time-consuming than I could have imagined in my worst nightmares. On the other hand, the Cologne meeting is slowly getting closer. And last but not least—every now and then an article or a BASIC report needs to get finished, right?

As for the layout of Scene, I'm of the opinion: leave it as it is and keep working on the other things. Your style is great by now. For your movie corner, I also contributed something this time: a description of the only classic Star Trek episode never broadcast in Germany, "Patterns of Force".

Well, the description is done, and I just took another quick look into Scene, and what do I see? There's already music on it! Sorry, hadn't noticed that before. As for Scenex, I'd perhaps do it at the beginning of the year as a retrospective on an extra disk, but that's just an idea—what do the others say? I clearly prefer the monthly release schedule, even if that puts you in a time crunch. (I'm simply too impatient—pardon!)

Since, as you know, I come from the Niederrhein, the trip all the way to Vienna for a club meeting is unfortunately too far for me. But I think those who come from around here will meet you there if you come to Cologne and/or Filderstadt.

Why politician JOKES? In our government, there haven't been people with functioning brains for a long time—so I can understand the medical community debating whether brain death represents the end of life; Bonn and Berlin are living proof to the contrary.

Well—now back to the important things. As an enthusiastic +D user, I regularly follow the +D corner, and especially when it comes to the lesser-known things, I'm grateful for any tip. (At the last club meeting, for instance, I learned that the CAT command can also be used specifically to search for files with specific names. CAT X "A*", for example, brings all files starting with the letter A onto the screen.)

Regarding the copy protection of the featured program, I completely agree with you. We live in the age of diskettes, CDs, and hard drives. The cassette tape is no longer competition or an alternative. If a publisher thinks they have to screw up their programs like that, I hope there are enough hackers to thwart their plans! Nothing against copyright, that has to exist, but not like this. This only hurts the very people who have nothing to do with piracy—namely those who want to transfer their programs onto modern media for easier handling. Software pirates have completely different technical means to tackle such things. You won't stop them this way under any circumstances. They simply make copies tape-to-tape, and there's no remedy against that anyway (except Lenslok). If copy protection is used at all, then on programs that are already on modern data carriers!

So—finally, a brief introduction of myself in case someone doesn't know me yet: My name is Peter C. Rennefeld, I come from Mönchengladbach on the Niederrhein, I'm 28 years old, and by trade an electronics technician in textile machinery manufacturing. I came to the Spectrum via the ZX81, though I remain loyal to the little brother as well. Until around 1990, my contacts were enough to stay active, but when things slowly dwindled down to almost nothing, I was on the verge of giving up. Then I had a severe accident, which gave me time to browse through CF again. There I not only found a 128K machine, which I bought, but also read several ads from the Zeddy and Speccy scene. The seller of the 128K (Dieter Schulze-Kaleys) then convinced me to give Cologne a call. That was in late autumn '95.

Since then, I've tried not only to consume the clubs' information—which is quite interesting in itself—but also, within my means, to do something to keep things going. Without contact with the clubs, I would have carried on for a while, but as a lone wolf and always with the fear breathing down my neck of losing my last computer. (At the time, I only had an intact but unmodded +2A and a +D—the second machine had died after long use and never returned from repair at Uffenkamp.)

Even if it doesn't look like it sometimes, I do have other hobbies, though they are currently suffering heavily under the Spectrum. Since I'm currently single, there's at least no one I'd have to cut back my work for, so plenty will still get done.

Hereby I also confess once again that I don't have the slightest clue about our machines' machine code, and I look with full admiration at those who can set a logo into rotational motion. (That was aimed at the editor of a certain diskmag!) For me, that will probably always remain a mystery, but instead, I enjoy tinkering with the computers' electronics and their possibilities, which probably isn't everyone's cup of tea either.

With that, I hope I've introduced myself enough and bored enough people. That I have no objections to publishing my address goes without saying.

One final idea of mine: Why not at least include the current member count in the imprint? Otherwise, I wish you continued success, both for Scene+ and in your job, and remain for today,
P.C.R.

Hello Peter,

Alright, in the future I'll refrain from the contortions to fill up the disk. You're right, quality counts, which is also the reason why SCENE+ became the second-best diskmag. I wonder, though, why it's currently the only German-language mag?

As for the music files, Cat's Eye sent me several, most of them ripped from demos so I can include something in my games. I've also received quite a few things 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 supplies me with their works on an ongoing basis; I'll write to Kriss of Illusion about this right away.

I also have a hardware project in the pipeline: a track display for (almost) all disk interfaces, but things are still going wrong there and I don't know when it will be finished, because whenever I have some spare time, I write for SCENE+.

Alright, after a few minor changes, such as adding a music corner, I'll stick with the style until Johan comes up with another batch of improvements—and those always arrive by the dozen. I wouldn't do Scenex so often either, but Guido insists that I save a Scenex onto the mag every single month. Do you know how hard it is to work with a knife at your throat? Well, now I know. But unless Thomas was making an April Fools' joke, that will soon become moot anyway.

SCENE+ will naturally 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—for example, I'd have to write the demo corner until I grow just 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 attending the meeting in Cologne. As for Filderstadt, I heard that we retail employees don't get any vacation days starting in November because of the Christmas shopping season! So November 15th is unfortunately out of the question, and because it will be impossible for me to attend, it probably won't be an "international" meeting this time! (I hope Thomas reads this!)

Alright, the jokes about politicians might go too far, or do you already know this one? In Trier, a human was born without a brain. His parents commented on the little one's career goal: He will undoubtedly become a politician! In other professions, after all, you actually need a brain.

Now, enough ranting about 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 work just as well with P(nr) as LOAD, but it doesn't work with ERASE and SAVE. I myself used to think my Disciple wasn't working properly because I couldn't copy files. The manual mentioned something about COPY d1"*" TO d2, but only from the +D manual did I learn that the SAVE command is used instead of COPY.

With the copy protection on 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. Since I've been cracking for years, however, this was only a minor hurdle for me and cost me only two hours of work to crack it. One thing is certain: I prefer unprotected programs, as I am a fan of fast loading times. From next time on, I'll do it like this: If I buy a game that has copy protection, I'll crack it and distribute it free...

...tis to everyone who proves that they have the original (i.e. if they send it to me, for example). After a short time, every coder will realize that copy protection only takes 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. There were once ten little black Spectrums. In the meantime, I've learned to at least repair the 48Ks, but if the price increase of Z80A CPUs continues like this... At the moment, as far as working machines go, I have two 48Ks (Issue 4S and 6A), two original Sinclair 128Ks, one of them in a PC minitower! (The "Euro" version with a standardized RS 232 interface), plus another plus two A that I modified myself. Defective machines lying around my place are without exception only 48Ks that I received broken or personally sent to kingdom come thanks to my tinkering. Only one did I lend out and get back broken.

Regarding the rotating logo: Well, with VU3D and an image compressor, anything is possible. I admit that I don't understand much about MC either, but in part it is 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 pleased.

Thanks again for writing.