Editorial

SCENE+ is published by:
L. C. D.
Prager Str. 92/11/12
A-1210 Vienna, Austria
Tel: (01) 272 34 63 from Austria, or +43 1 272 34 63 from abroad.

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 (text, screen, animation, etc.).

Hello SCENE+ readers.

Once again, a few changes regarding the magazine. It has been agreed with Thomas that SCENE+ and SUC-session will be published together every two months. That suits me quite well, as it leaves me more time for programming my games, organizing my collection, and similar things. Since Thomas wants to buy in with me (contrary to all rumors, I did not buy out SUC!), anyone who paid their subscription past 1997 will get their money back. If you are attending the meeting in Stuttgart, feel free to talk to me about it! I won't bite! :)

I'm slowly starting to regret buying a PC—and not just because everything is programmed for that idiotic Window$, but because I can hardly escape the fascination of raytracing. Reflections 2.5 for the Amiga was in some ways better than version 4.0, but now with a 200 MHz computer, the rendering speed has finally become tolerable. On an Amiga 500 it was almost impossible to work, so I bought that 2 MB memory expansion for nothing. In Reflections 4.0 I have already designed several very complex objects; scenes that would have taken days on the Amiga are now rendered in a matter of minutes—if it weren't for certain Windows-related glitches. In any case, it is very helpful for creating scenes for "Legacy".

Alongside the color scanner, I have now added a color printer. Contrary to my poor past experiences with Canon, I bought the Canon BJC 620 because it supports 720 DPI and is very economical in terms of running costs. Unfortunately, the manual has become even worse (Canon treats the extended Canon mode like a top-secret X-File), and I had to figure out from many other manuals that without the extended Canon mode, the printer only offers 360 DPI in B/W mode, or 180×360 in color mode. However, I will delve deeper into this issue and publish the control codes for 720 DPI in color—what else do I have a printer with a HexDump option for! Be that as it may, I have also written two color hardcopy routines for our Specci (60 DPI and 180 DPI). If you want them, just write to me; the routines are compatible with most color printers.

Admittedly, I play games on the PC quite often, but only titles that are genuinely good: Civilization, Incubation, Ascendancy... Well, with the exception of Incubation, all of them could easily be adapted for the Spectrum, and they serve as an idea pool for my future games. In any case, I must finish Legacy first before turning to other projects, even though my drawer of project ideas keeps getting fuller. There is a whole bunch of games waiting to be realized.

Regarding the Pentagon: if a sufficient number of buyers can be found who are willing to pay a little extra, I would drive to Vilnius (it's only 1,200 km!) to pick up the computers directly. Since petrol costs in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Lithuania are considerably lower than in Germany or Austria, it won't cost much more, but it depends entirely on how many people take part. If my insurance company finds out I'm driving towards the East, my car premium might go up.

Yours,
L. C. D.

NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SPECTRUM

• The next meeting (ZLINCOM '97) will take place in November/December in Zlín (where else?).
• Spectrum Software Hire has unfortunately closed down.
• Paul Howard of Impact Software has been programming in Visual Basic on the PC for some time now and has converted several Spectrum PD classics, which I've already seen and played. Quite nice, even though I noticed only minor differences from the Spectrum versions; either way, I still like the Spectrum originals much better. Nevertheless, Paul hasn't turned his back on the Specci completely.