Editorial

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to SynTax over the last
year. Yes, it's that time when the points are finally totted up
and the 'SynTax Contributor of the Year' award is made. This year
it goes to Brian Burke, the runners-up being Roy Sims, The Grue!,
John Barnsley and The Bitmap Kid. Full details are given in the
contributions section but congratulations to them all again.
The next award will be made in Issue 29.

It's prizes, prizes all the way ... thanks to everyone who entered
last issue's competition - still not THAT many but enough to need
a draw to find the winners.  Matthew Pegg won a copy of Oo-Topos
on the ST, John Barnsley won Lure of the Temptress on the Amiga
and Ian Taylor won Zork Zero on the PC. Well done, and I hope you
are enjoying the software.

The answers to the competition were
1. (a) Marc Blank and Dave Lebling
   (b) Infocom (MIT also accepted)
2. Guybrush Threepwood
3. Guild
4. Roberta Williams
5. Level 9
6. (a) The Grue
   (b) Borphee Computers
7. A grue
8. FTL
9. (a) Sue Medley (Glad everyone got THAT right!)
   (b) Barbara Gibb
10. Eye (of the Be)holder (Shadow (of the Be)ast also accepted)

We'll have another competition in an issue or so - any suggestions
for it? Remember it has to be aimed at all three machines, ST, PC
and Amiga.

From this issue, the Amiga version of SynTax is a 'true' Amiga
version. Previously it had been an ST disk running using an
emulator, but the emulator had been written at the time of the
Amiga A500 and didn't work on any other versions. Richard Hewison,
with assistance from Mike Smith and Paul Hannington, has written a
new program using AMOS and, as far as we can tell, it runs on ALL
Amigas. So if you've got an Amiga-owning friend who couldn't
previously take the magazine, perhaps you'd like to spread the
word?! I'd like to thank Richard publicly for all the time he
has spent writing the program as it ended up as a much longer job
than we'd first thought.

The Amiga version uses an .IFF file as a loading screen so if any
budding artists would like to contribute a screen for a future
issue, on an adventure theme, please send them in. Obviously they
can't be counted towards the points score as ST and PC readers
can't join in, but you would have the satisfaction of seeing your
work on the disk.

As I said last issue, this one is an extra-large issue to use up
the contributions. For that reason, the 5 1/4" PC version is
coming on two disks. The only contributions that haven't been used
are those which would not have affected the outcome of the
end-of-year awards. So I am in desperate need of reviews etc -
send in now and get a start on the next year's total ...  The
thing that eventually called a halt to stuffing things onto the
disk was the menu limit on the PC and Amiga versions. They can
have a maximum of 17 items each. In an attempt to get round that,
some of the shorter reviews have been combined into a file called
'mini reviews' at the start of the section.

Finally, for PC owners - look out for a new magazine in the shops
soon. Called PC Mart, it will be available every other week.  From
Issue 3 you should see a name you recognise in it ...

Well, you've got a lot to read so I'd better let you get on with
it! Enjoy.
                                               Sue