Letters If you write in on an adventure-related matter and your letter isn't marked "Not for Publication", I'll assume it's okay for me to quote from it here. ------------------------------------------------------------------ From Alex van Kaam, Deurne, The Netherlands (extract) ...You will have to wait some time for something on BSS Jane Seymour because the disk had a read error on it so I sent it back to Softsellers in Ipswich ..... (This was four weeks ago). After a couple of phonecalls (very expensive) there is still nothing so I think I won't hear from them again. So I think I'll go back to the store where I order most of my games and that's Software City in Wolverhampton. They have a great service. When I post my order, 8 days later I have the game at home! So if anyone from around Europe asks you a company to order games from, this is the one (they are even faster and better than Silica). If you are wondering why I order my games from the UK, well in Holland (my part of it) there are almost no stores for the ST. It's all Amiga (yuk) and if I find a store, it is still selling Time Bandit or Xenon 1..... So to fill my spare time I just finished DM with the character Hisssa and now I'm starting with Chaos. It's great to play both of the games with just one character. @~You'll be glad to hear that Alex did eventually get BSS Jane @~Seymour from Softsellers! @~A lot of us probably don't appreciate how lucky we are to have @~several computer shops close to home or within a local phonecall. @~If you find a good firm, it's a good idea to stick with them like @~you have with Software City - I haven't tried them at all. But @~ordering from abroad as you do, it must be a bind when you get @~problems; it's often bad enough when the firm concerned is in @~the same country as we've already heard through the letters @~section! From Neil Shipman, Bristol If anyone's thinking about having a PC emulator fitted to their ST I would say go ahead - you won't regret it. I've had PC Speed for about 4 months and have been delighted with it in all respects. It's easy to use (just boot up the installation program then insert your MS-DOS disk - which, incidentally, isn't supplied!); it's fully compatible (everything I've tried so far has run without trouble); and it's quite fast (text adventures respond to inputs as quickly as you'd expect from an ordinary ST title, although graphics take longer and the mouse is a bit jerky). PC Speed, PC Ditto II and Supercharger are all PC XT emulators. Recently, though, a couple of AT emulators, AT-Speed and AtOnce, have become available and these have the benefit of running quite a bit faster. However they still only provide a CGA 4-colour graphics display which is the most basic of the lot. This is fine for the Infocom titles like Shogun, Journey, etc. where the graphics are shown in detailed monochrome, but I don't imagine it would be much good for adventures which rely heavily on graphics. If you have a Mega ST or an STE then it's supposedly a simple job to fit the emulator because adaptors are available which do away with the need for soldering. But if you've got an old ST like me I wouldn't recommend fitting one yourself. The board has to be soldered on to the top of the main processor and you could very easily fry this while attempting it! Far better to have it done by an authorised dealer. You only need one disk drive for the PC emulator to work and, when I bought PC Speed, I had an external DS drive and an internal SS one. Formatting the DS drive to 80 tracks (720K) worked OK but it was impossible to format the SS drive to 80 tracks (360K) which meant that it wasn't much use. Installing some of the Infocom titles with just one DS drive is an extremely laborious process and I very quickly decided to upgrade my internal drive to a DS one and now I've no problems at all. Once installed (thanks for the help, Sue!), all the adventures (including Mines of Titan and Circuit's Edge) will run using one DS drive. Fitting a PC emulator is cheaper and much more convenient than going out and buying even the most basic PC. I'd recommend it! @~Neil also suggested that I include any PC adventures which will @~run on the ST using an emulator in the adventure list so from @~this issue I'll add any I know of so far and then amend the @~list as and when I get told of more. So if YOU know of any @~more.... ----------------------------------------------------------------- @~Now, in response to Jan Kellerman's letter last issue about the @~lack of STers in Australia: From Dave Spinks, Folkestone (extract) ....I thought I'd let you know about an Australian ST user group with whom your reader might like to get in touch. It's the "Atari ST User Group, Sydney" run by Andrew Brown of 49 Bambil Crescent, Dapto 2530, New South Wales, Australia. Tel: (voice) (042) 621226. They also have a BBS (V21/V22/V23) open 7pm-7am Mon-Fri and 24hrs weekends on Tel: (02) 7094038. Andrew hasn't been in touch lately but the last info on their newsletter I had suggested inclusion of the following in their forthcoming newsletter - GAMES & ADVENTURES 1. Reviews of the latest games. 2. Hints and tips for games and adventures 3. Hints for all the Sierra On-Line adventures 4. Maps for some adventures 5. Discounted games to members. It's been a while since I logged onto the BBS (very expensive from the UK) so I'm afraid I can't confirm the group is still in existence, but hopefully this information may serve to put the lonely adventurer in touch with kindred spirits. @~Thanks for the information, Dave. As it happens, Jan is over in @~the UK for a visit at the moment (I hope you're having a good @~holiday and not finding our weather too appalling!) but I'm sure @~the info will be useful for the future. From Mr D A Jones, Solihull The only comment I would like to make is that you only get one game on your PD disks. Would it be possible to include a hint/solution file to that game on the disk? I feel this would make your disks unique from other PD sources and be very helpful to playing. @~One problem would be that it is very hard to get solutions to PD @~games; I only have a couple here, mostly AGT ones. @~But how do you all feel about this idea? Or might you find it too @~tempting to have a solution so easily to hand? Votes please! ------------------------------------------------------------------- From Alan Ridealgh, Chelmsford Now that the summer seems to be over, I thought it a good time to dust down the computer and get back to adventuring. I just don't seem to get the time during the summer months to be active exploring caves, collecting treasures, solving puzzles (or not) and making maps. It always seems time to cut the grass, water the flowers, clean the car, have barbecues and do all the things one @+can't in winter. ~(In my case it's more "cut the clover and @~potholes", with a large red setter who loves to dig and a very @~small garden, I'm afraid the grass doesn't stand a chance!) So, I thought I would start off writing to you the letter I keep meaning to but never got round to, Of course, there's no need to tell you again what a very good job you're doing, it's been said before, so, if I may, I'd like to add a few comments and ideas of my own. After reading Issue 8, I had to agree with Kim on the time it takes to print the title page, it is very slow and if you could speed things up a bit, I'm sure many readers would appreciate it. Another idea might be to include a print-out order form for the PD section, as you have in the back issues section. It would make ordering software that much easier. Right, that's the letter out of the way, back to the fantasy worlds. Now, where's that lantern...... @~Thanks for the compliments about the disk - you can tell me as @~often as you like! Seriously though, as you can see, the @~printing has been speeded up as suggested and I've added the PD @~order form. It hadn't occurred to me before, mostly because (as @~I keep saying) I'd rather give it away than sell it - but as @~people still seem to prefer to buy PD than send in a @~contribution and get a free disk, it's well worth doing, thanks @~for suggesting it. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From Tony Woolcock and Geoff Atkinson, Southampton Thank you for your review of The Blag in issue 8 of SynTax. As you so rightly said, The Blag is a much-enhanced version of the popular QL game still being sold by CGH services in Wales. May I take this opportunity to inform your readers of a Trivia Quiz that should be made available by the next issue of SynTax. The QL version of The Blag contained a Trivia section relating to the history of the Police in this country. There just wasn't enough room to include this with the ST game so we have produced a Trivia Quiz that will provide clues to help those who are unable to finish The Blag. (We really do want our competition to be won). The program will be provided by us for the cost of a disk and return postage. Thanks again for the help you have given us. @~My pleasure! Always glad to help the boys in blue! @~From this issue onwards, The Blag can also be purchased direct @~from me - see the adverts section for full details. Do give it a @~try, it IS an excellent game. @~Finally, the Trivia Quiz can be obtained direct from Tony at @~30 Lyndhurst Road, Ashurst, Southampton, SO4 2DU.