Letter from D-Man in Kovrov: BUZZ, FunTop and a Wanted List for Samara

Hi Max aka M.M.A. aka Unbeliever all Extreme & all Samara Cool City!!! Thanks for your letter — honestly, we didn't expect it. Thanks for the kind words about BUZZ. We're trying our best. We'll definitely include your article in BUZZ #15, which is coming soon. From your article I understood you want to put our zines on a CD/kk? We're honored. Finally someone actually likes our zine :) Of course I'm sending issues 1 through 10 and issue 14. But I think issues 1–8 were such shit — we wrote such nonsense there that it's even funny when you reread the old issues (especially the first ones). Anyway, take a look, maybe you'll like them :), and if not — to hell with them. Still, some of the old issues do have a few interesting bits. I'm thinking of pulling the best articles from the old issues and compiling them under the current shell, something like "The Best of BUZZ 1–8". What do you think — worth doing or leave it as is? Real progress started with issue 9, when we met another Kovrov group, Shadow S.P.G., which we later merged with to form Eternity Industry. That's written up in some BUZZ issue and briefly mentioned in Flash Info_14. Well, enjoy the BUZZ issues, hope you like them :). Read about our group lineup in EI_INFO1.<W>. Besides the ZX-Division we also have a PC-Division: Pyrodex — real cool coder. Dark Lion — coder. Hexmaster — coder. Digital Brain — coder. The PC guys mostly keep to themselves, helping mainly with graphics conversion and such. Though Pyrodex does help us with various algorithms and so on. You should see his effects — they're really cool! We don't have an Amiga Division yet — no Amigas in Kovrov :(, but hopefully that won't last long. Now for our news… First of all, we're gearing up hard for FunTop: Senat is making a 4K intro and it's turning out pretty cool; Paracels and Demiurge Ash haven't left Art Studio (by the way, do you have any new graphics editors?), trying to create something awesome. Syrus is also sitting in PSC 1.04 writing cool music. We're still thinking about making a demo, but only thinking — and time is running out, so I don't know; if we manage it, we'll make a demo too. Besides FT prep we're collecting material for BUZZ #15 — we'll release it soon. Demiurge Ash is working on his RPG "12 Secret Books" (I copied the demo version); he'll probably soon release a pre-release with one mission that he wants to try selling for $1 — basically to test the market for the full version. He's also doing a Strip Poker remix. Paracels is making a new version of his protection called TRICK 2.05. Version 2.000 is already done, which he wants to make a little money on (copy — 30 rub., distribution — 20 rub.). Once 2.05 comes out, 2.000 will be declared freeware. I copied the working beta TRICK 1.03b. Paracels is also drawing tons of graphics for our needs and others'. He recently drew a bunch of art for Sat's demo, but Sat decided to drop the demo. On Saturday (27.06.98) Senat, Ash and maybe someone else will go to Vladimir and hopefully talk Sat into finishing the demo — everything's ready, just needs fixing up. Spy wants to make a proper copier with lots of features and a nice interface for transferring files between MS-DOS and TR-DOS disks (both ways), with multi-file selection. He's also making an intro for BUZZ #15. Besides collecting material for BUZZ_15, I'm archiving various games to disk. We're also thinking about making a very complex logic game called "Siluet" — but again, just thinking. That's about all we're up to at the moment. I looked through your Wanted list — we have a lot of it. I'll go through the list now. If something fits on the disks I'll copy it, the rest next time, if you still need it! NICRON — issues 74–77, 85, 89, 90. MAXIMUM — issue 34. LPRINT — 18, 19, 20. ZX-NEWS — 35, 36. R.I.P. — 1, 2–7. BODY — #10, #11, #12, #13. BUZZ — we have them all!!! ENERGY — 2–8, 8.5, 9.7 ZX-PILOT — 23, 24, planning to archive and format. ZX-PILOT — SUXX & MUST DIE IN SHIT !!! FUNNY BOX — issue 4. SPECTRUM EXPERT — only issue 1. ZX-FORMAT #8 — we'd like to see it ourselves! NAVY SEALS A & B (disk version by TITUS only) — we have exactly those versions. HERO QUEST (Russian, disk version by OLDMAN only) — don't have that, but there's a great MyHem version with lots of bugs fixed, faster output, disk LOAD/SAVE, etc. NIGEL MANSELL GRAND PRIX (GREMLINS '92??) (any version) — I think someone has it, need to ask around. ADVANCED PINBALL SIMULATOR by CODEMASTERS (AY VERSION ONLY!!!) — same, people say someone has it. POPEYE COLLECTION (1, 2, 3) by Digital Reality — only Flash's version. WIZARD OF OZ (FFF'97) (full of coz!) — yes! E'97 DEMOZ — RAY (by Ivan Roshchin) — yes. E'97 unPLUGGED — Xtaz (Virt group), working!!! — we'd like to see it ourselves. LAZY SCREEN PACKER or full S.O.T.A. — have Lazy Screen Packer, dreaming of S.O.T.A.! TEXT DESIGNER older than 2.2… (saw 2.5 as overlay to CONSUL COM — maybe standalone? Heard 2.32 was planned?) — have full unc cracked 2.32. Siv Blader/Excess TD told me 2.32 is the last real version; anything higher is a crack. That's everything from your list we have — I'll send what you need. I also copied our catalog in case you want more. I'd copy it all at once, but we have an acute shortage of blank 5.25" disks. Sorry about that. We saw your 3-color graphics collection — cool! Inspired by you, we made our own small collection, though I don't think it turned out that great. I'll copy it if there's room. Sending our group photo of the whole ZX-Division: Paracels Demiurge Ash Senat Syrus D-Man Spy Crazy I'd have sent scans, but Dark Lion messed them up (must die! Something "95" corrupted his drive and he had to format it, losing data including our photos :(), maybe someone else still has a copy, I don't know. The disk with them is at Sat's place. We'll go pick it up. By the way, where did you get the Black Raven 2 pictures — is part 2 out yet? We already beat part 1! Also, know how to enable cheats in Raven? During the menu (where you choose kung side or human side, load saved game, exit to TR-DOS) press "8" — "?" appears top right, enter 6275, something appears top left, then keys "1" and "2" select level, "3" enables invincibility. When set, press "5" and play as usual. This cheat is in Faultless #9. How's the OBERON zine doing? Saw issue 4 — KOOL! Going to FunTop? If it's not a secret, what are you bringing? I drew a couple of ASCII-art logos for you — take a look, maybe you'll like them ;) I'm a fan of that kind of graphics, watched lots of it on PC and tried drawing myself, but I'm not very good :( File "XTM_LOGO.<W>". Well, that's about it — waiting eagerly for a reply, write back. C Ya! SPECCY RULEZ! P.S. Same address: 601901 Vladimir Region, Kovrov, Chernyshevskogo St., 7, apt. 17, Kalinin D.Yu. P.P.S. Could you write Samara news for our BUZZ — we'd really appreciate it. Date: 24.06.98. Time: 14:55:34 (msk) Place: Eternity Industry H.Q. D-Man, Eternity Industry, Kovrov Cool City! P.P.P.S. (handwritten) Caution! Our WG interface is turbocharged on the left side, and when trying to write in our format the catalog gets corrupted — be careful! Catalogs saved! Give my regards to all of Samara! D-Man / EI