Editorial

We had a brilliant, time-saving idea this month. I get a lot of
typed contributions on paper, for both magazines, which I have to
retype onto disk; very time-consuming and an obvious duplication
of effort. What about a scanner with optical character recognition
software, we thought? Great idea. Run the scanner over the page,
confirm any character identification it needs, save it as a WP
file, proof-read it, edit it and whack it into the magazine. So
rather than worry about typing all these contributions in, it'll
only take a couple of hours once we get the scanner. Decision
made, we look through the adverts, phone the order through and
while away the days till it arrives...

That was 3 weeks ago though it was originally promised in 2-3
days. I won't bore you with the ins and outs of the delays, all I
can say is I hope it works when it finally comes.  All the hanging
about waiting for the package to come has, needless to say, put my
schedule right out, so some things that were due to be typed in
for this issue have been put back to issue 20. For example, I
still have several sections of Brian's Abandoned Places solution
in hand. But, it should make life easier in the long run. Disk
is still quicker though and remember that Amiga contributions can
be sent on disk as the Grue can convert them to PC format for me.

The mini-review suggestion put forward by Jean last issue has met
with little response. Jean sent her own views on DM (see Letters)
and "Kedenan" was the only reader to respond to HHGTTG. No-one sent
anything on Guild of Thieves, the other suggested title. I've held
onto the HHGTTG review for Issue 20 in the hope that someone else
will send comments; I know a lot of you have played it. Kjell has
proposed widening the idea to include mini-reviews of ANY
adventures or books (see Letters again), so that's the current
situation if anyone wants to join in.

A lot of readers have changed machines since first taking SynTax,
from ST to Amiga or, more often, PC. Remember if you want your old
disks changed to your new machine's format, just post them to me
and I'll do a swap. The ST readership is still the largest group


but only just and it's dropping noticeably each issue. Even
though Ultima VI has finally appeared on the ST, that will be the
last non-PC game brought out by Origin, I'm told. More and more
companies are dropping the ST in favour of the PC and, to a
lesser extent, Amiga. The PC leisure software market is certainly
taking off in the States and European companies seem to be
following suit. It's a vicious circle - if companies don't produce
the software, people move to a different machine so they can play
the games they want to, making the original machine look less
popular so even LESS support is given to it.

It's like the 'summer software syndrome'. Companies hang onto new
games at this time of year, and release them in the autumn.
"People don't play games in the summer" is their explanation.
Codswallop. We'd play more if they brought 'em out. Do they think
we spend all summer lazing about on the beach or sunbathing in the
back garden ... ? Personally I prefer to stay 'pale and
interesting' and keep my mind active!

Even Softworks (AGT) no longer have access to an ST. Dave tells me
that Harry Callisis, who did the ST version, has sold his ST so he
couldn't help with the save/restore problems mentioned last issue.
I think the problem is that people writing AGT adventures are
doing them on the PC and certain AGT commands, like the TONE
command, just get rejected by the ST (and the Amiga).  However,
despite a new set of Sanity Clause datafiles from Dave, I still
haven't got it working on the ST, despite removing the TONE
commands. I haven't given up hope yet, though ...

I broke my rule of playing through the Ultimas in order. Ultima II
is still only partly completed. The reason is that while Alan was
on a working trip abroad (to Japan for almost three weeks) I did
my usual trick of treating myself to a piece of software. This
time it was Ultima Underworld, reviewed this issue by Roy. It
certainly is a leap forward from the previous games, both in style
and visually. It has taken me quite a while to get used to the way
you move round the dungeon in a scrolling fashion rather than
step-by-step. Despite hours of play I'm still only on level 1 - I
did accidentally find level 2 by falling down a hole and
plummeting into water! When I finally found dry land, I got
attacked by three goblins and it was goodnight, Vienna.

I've also been making a start on getting to grips with TADS. I
haven't found it as easy to use as AGT; it must be a bit of an
advantage to know a bit about programming and understand what all
the different brackets mean - such as {} and (). Having said that,
the final display is a lot neater than AGT so I reckon it's worth
taking the time to understand it. Some time I'll do a proper
comparison of the two systems but I think I need more practise
first!

Ah well, back to the dungeons!
                                             Sue