Letters @~Any letters sent to me that aren't marked 'not for publication' @~and which deal with adventure-related matters will be considered @~for inclusion. @~This issue, comments on last issue including Issue 30's mistake, @~Dungeons of Avalon 1 and 2, buying adventures, upgrading to PCs, @~Syntax contents, a dragon speaks out (again!), emulators and @~books, and prizes and Falcons. ------------------------------------------------------------------ From Bill Commons, Margate I have just read Issue 30 of SynTax, many thanks. I was reading the hints and tips file "Eye of the Beholder 2 Again" when I thought, I never saw that monster described in number two of the hints. I had passed this section and was on the final level when I gave up because I was fed up with the constant reloading of a saved game after being killed. I almost decided to play the game again and backtrack to see what I had missed when the penny dropped. Hints number two and three refer to the game Black Crypt which had a very detailed walk through a few issues back. @~I was just testing to make sure you're all awake! :) @~I got all the info from a letter and obviously it changed @~adventures in mid-flow but muggins here didn't notice! The @~person who had sent it originally rang when the disk went out to @~say 'there are going to be some very confused people wondering @~if they missed something in EOTB2!' @~Incidentally, the Unknown Adventurer recommended the EOTB2 @~character editor on PD 422 for souping up characters on the PC @~if you're finding the game very hard. Does anyone know of @~anything similar on the Amiga? I also noticed the article on Dungeons of Avalon and would like to say that I did not have any loading problems with my Amiga 600. As the author refers to Dungeons of Avalon 2, perhaps they solved my problem of being stuck at the prisons which I asked about some time ago. I would love to play this game through. My other query is where do you buy role play and adventure games now? I know about Special Reserve but most of the other advertisers in magazines do not have the games when I telephone them. I have tried to get Might and Magic 3, Amberstar, Bane of the Cosmic Forge and many more. I am tempted to change to a PC and hope someone replies to the article on what PC to choose. Then where do you get adventures in that format? @~The main firms I use for PC games are ECU (European Computer @~User), DataGEM and Premier. I have found all of them cheap, @~reliable and quick. Their phone numbers are: @~ECU - 0800 318576 @~DataGEM - 071 608 0624 @~Premier - 0268 271172 @~All of them keep Amiga software too as far as I am aware. @~I think the PC will be the only way to go soon. Few games come @~out on the Amiga that aren't on the PC (I thought Amberstar was @~one but, on checking, I see ECU used to list PC and ST versions @~too) but loads are PC-only. The only problem is the initial cost @~of the machine but even those are getting cheaper. ----------------------------------------------------------------- @~Following Simon's comments on the content of the magazine: From Steve McLaren, Margate I enjoyed SynTax, another fine issue ... I think you cannot have it all adventuring-related items. Some of the other bits and bobs make up a fine mag. If I find something I do not wish to read, I don't, but isn't this what makes a magazine different from the rest? After all, Sue, you do rely on people for adventuring reviews, help etc. So I cannot see why there should not be a book section or a film section. Most adventurers read fantasy books and watch sci fi films so, Sue, do not change the format when it works as well as it is. ------------------------------------------------------------------ @~More on last issue's comments from Simon from: James Judge, East Peckham Dear Simon, Concerning your points made in the last issue of SynTax. They are all valid but I feel that you are taking a somewhat closed-mind approach to the magazine. I, too, would hate for SynTax to become just a magazine that has got some adventuring stuff in it, a bit of arcade stuff, lots of book reviews and reviews of other types of software. But, I would also hate it if SynTax became an adventure only magazine like Probe is. Now, I'm not having a go at Probe, it is just that when you receive a copy of it through the post you know that you will get adventures from cover to cover with, maybe, the odd article about adventures (how to make them more believable and the like). In this magazine my favourite section is the letters section where there is always something interesting going on. The reason why I like this part? Because it is varied covering aspects such as the latest Tony Collins dig to Tatlina from Romania and her software emporium. Now, SynTax has its letters, but they are not as varied as in Probe and so there needs to be somewhere else in the magazine that offers some variety from just adventures and the Features section is where I go for this. The Trekkie and Quantum stuff doesn't interest me all that much, I just watch the TV, but I know that, as this is an adventure magazine, readers will probably be interested in, to a certain degree, sci-fi things. As Star Trek is the most popular sci-fi thing since sliced bread a lot of readers will find the interviews interesting. As for the book section the same thing goes - adventurers are, normally, far more interested in books than your average person. Sometimes you'll find games based on books (Betrayal At Krondor, for instance) and so if someone gets interested in the game they may like to try the book which may lead to other books but the only way that they will find out about these books is by talking to like-minded people who are on the same wavelength as they are. If, say, Sue enjoyed a book I know that there would be a good chance that I would as we both like the same kind of material and I would look forward to her next recommendation as it may introduce me to a new author or notify me of new books by my favourite author. To me reading is part of adventuring - without books there would be no basis for learning more things about different worlds and cultures (no matter how fictional) and if you can find a game based on that same book, all the better. The Film side is a bit dubious, I agree with you. I probably won't be doing any more reviews of films unless they are heavily on the sci-fi side but info on certain films is always interesting - take the Blade Runner feature in the last issue. As for reviewing other games fine, people do play other games and if a game is reviewed by someone that they happen to know, all the better - you are more likely to know whether to get the game or not. Footie and Flight sims are, probably, the most common pastime for adventurers when they are not adventuring (aside from strategy games) and so reviews of these will be a good thing. As for your suggestion for more interviews, great - if the authors actually help. My interview with you was great - I sent the questions off one Monday and received the answers on the following Thursday (true, it took me six months to finally give it to Marion, but...). But this doesn't always work. I have tried to do two other interviews - one for PC Mart and one for SynTax. Graham Cluley, while being a good writer, is not, from my experience (and from what I've heard) the most reliable man in the world and, despite numerous reminders, he still hasn't given me the time of day regarding our interview which he agreed upon about 8 months ago! The other was with an ST author who is trying to write a BBS MUG (which you are fond of) but, after an enthusiastic 'YES!' from him, I have not heard anything else from him for quite a while, even though he said he would get in contact very soon. Maybe, if there is a lot of dissatisfaction over SynTax or a lot of mixed feelings, a questionnaire may be called for but just remember that if we didn't have these extra bits and pieces the features section would be sparse, the magazine would be less varied and you would be getting less for your money. In my opinion only the Film side of things needs looking at - I'm perfectly happy the way things are and I feel that Sue is doing the right thing by not using too much editorial clout when considering what to include in the magazine. Again (I seem to be saying this a lot, but I mean it), well done Sue and keep up the brilliant work. If it wasn't for SynTax my life would be far less colourful and my 'phone bill would be far less. James Judge PS - To MONGOOSE {you know who} No, I haven't got THAT good at adventures - it's just that you can't help me . @~I must say that everyone I have spoken to about it over the @~phone has said, we like the magazine as it is; if we're not @~interested in one bit, we just don't read it. I may do a @~questionnaire some time in the future but, until then, SynTax @~stays as it is. ------------------------------------------------------------------ @~What can I say about this next letter? Yes, it's .... From Nogwidget (address unknown) Hello, human persons, are you receiving me? I've never stopped marvelling at the fact that the human race managed to develop a system of communication, be it a little primitive. Your editor actually asked me to contribute again to your magazine. I was standing between her and the electric socket connected to her computer at the time. "What" she said "did I think of the last issue?" @~I'm a very polite person ... Sue Well, the best thing in it was my letter, and the Medley Human Person agreed with me. @~I'm also no fool ... what would YOU do if a dragon with an itchy @~trigger-claw was standing next to the power lead of YOUR @~computer? But first let me get the rest of the dwarves and dragons article out of the way. It was rubbish as per usual. I fell asleep while reading the letter from the human person James Judge. I remember something about hydrogen and have come to the conclusion that he must be a bit of a gasbag himself. The other letter from the human person Jean Childs was utterly boring, being all about dinosaurs. So boring that I went round to her house to see if she had a snooker table there. There was an almost interesting letter from the human person Jim Johnson about lateral thinking. I think any kind of thinking from a human person is an achievement be it lateral or whatever, but I must comment on some parts of this letter. Jim Johnson mentioned that in the Pit and the Pendulum, the villain was not "sliced in half by the blade" nor "impaled on a dozen sharp stakes" but was left falling which he felt was better. I would have preferred one of the first two but being left with the third option, I'm sure my mind could have come up with something even worse. He also said that the female mind does not suffer from these defects, and referred to Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. I suppose the idea of cutting up bodies and removing parts of their anatomies is not unethical, un-natural and repulsive. Now if you want some real lateral thinking, what about adventure writers who allow their players to kill dragons? To unethical, un-natural and repulsive you could also add impossible. Then there was a letter from the human person Brian Burke. He said "Not being an egotist I am very much aware of my own limitations. Like most people I suppose the reality is that we undervalue ourselves and ignore accomplishments we have achieved in our lifetime to date." Ha! Ha! Human persons undervalue themselves? Quite the reverse, and as to accomplishments you don't know what an accomplishment is. Now racing through a forest and burning up everything in sight or crashing the editor's computer, that is an accomplishment. Talking of computers, that same human person asked for advice regarding the buying of a PC. My advice to you is to make it as dragon-proof as you can. The funniest part of the magazine was a letter from The Grue on Tads programming. He kept referring to 'the bed or chair'. I can't imagine a grue or even a human person not knowing the difference. So let me explain, Grue. A bed is longer than a chair, and wider. A chair has a back to it. You sleep in a bed and you sit in a chair. There, does that help? I think the best bit in the magazine was the Taglines by Grimwold. They were quite funny, but I have some better ones. Each one is aimed at a particular SynTax reader:- @~The rest of this letter was edited out as it was too insulting @~to include. ------------------------------------------------------------------ @~Next, software emulators on the Amiga and books. From David Froude, Shepperton The Amiga A4000 comes with CrossDOSS, as part of the Workbench 3.0 software package. I believe this was, or perhaps it still is, a PD or Shareware program. Once CrossDOSS has been activated, you can work with MS-DOS disk directories and files in the designated drive (I have only used the floppy drive so far) just as you would normally due on the Amiga. You can copy, move, rename and delete using the standard (Amiga) Workbench icon and menu techniques. Files can be loaded and saved on MS-DOS disks from any Amiga program and MS-DOS disks can be formatted. File naming conventions for MS-DOS apply when accessing or creating file and directory names. However MS-DOS programs cannot be run, it is just read and write. I mentioned in a previous letter that I had a Spectrum Emulator version 1.7. I sent away for "Technosound Turbo 2", a sound digitiser which plugs into the Amiga parallel printer port. On receiving the package I climbed up into the loft and rummaged around in some old cardboard boxes and dug out my "old" WH Smith "Computer Program Data Recorder", a cassette player which was designed specially for Spectrum program tapes. It has a level meter so the sound levels can be easily measured. In a further cardboard box were some old Spectrum cassettes put away some years ago and almost forgotten. Raring to go I then started to save programs to the Amiga hard drive. I had moderate success. To get the programs to load into the Amiga Spectrum emulator was at times difficult and meant trying various output levels from the cassette player before success was achieved. The Emulator has a number of pull-down menus, one of which covers digitiser types, Prosound, Rombo and others. I had most success with "Prosound" with very low levels from the cassette player. A few required "others" set to maximum. With some I had no success whatsoever. Those with "fast" loaders would not load at all and a few with "normal" loaders didn't want to know either. Anyway, I did succeed in saving about 20 adventure games to disk. This included some old Scott Adams, some of the Mysterious Adventure series and a few old Gilsoft games. They do look a little limited (haven't adventure games come a long way since those early days) but the nostalgia lingers on. Most of the games I had completed about 10 or so years ago but on having a go at a few of them I could not remember the solutions. Still, a challenge for a rainy day. Needless to say with all this "playing around" I have not done much adventuring but I found the Spectrum incident a challenge but still remain beaten by the fast loaders. Any help from any other Amiga Spectrum fiddlers? @~Can anyone help? By the way, although I have not done a lot of "fiddling" as yet, the digitiser works marvellously with music. I have heard there is a Spectrum emulator for the PC or is this just a rumour? @~No, it does exist and it's in the SynTax library. It works very @~well with Spectrum games. The hard bit is getting the games from @~tape onto disk. Books. I note that you carry reviews of science fantasy and similar books in Syntax. Among the books I have read recently I can recommend the "Wheel of Time" series by Robert Jordan. I have only read the first 3 of the series, "The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt and The Dragon Reborn" There are also 2 further volumes of the series available in the bookshops. I came across the first 3 quite by accident last year while on holiday in Devon. I carry out an activity I call "booking" which involves disappearing into bookshops, mainly second hand bookshops, going along the bookshelves looking for new books to read. While in Plymouth I came across this bookshop which deals in new and good quality second hand books and there were selling the first two (brand new) at less than half price. A few days later in a similar shop in Exeter I found number three. It was not until earlier this year I picked up the first and could not put the series down until the third was read. I shall be looking for the 4th & 5th but am at the moment side tracked onto some excellent Dick Francis books. However, the "Wheel of Time" series covers the adventures of three youths and two maidens from a village who have powers they did not know and is about the age old battle between good and evil. @~I like the name "booking"; something I do a lot. I can't walk @~past a bookshop without having just a quick look inside which @~usually results in MORE books being brought home (I think there @~are now 38 boxes of over 1300 books in the loft! And the @~bookshelves are still full ...) ------------------------------------------------------------------ @~Finally, prizes and Falcons from ... Bitmap, Surrey. JJ, my good friend, well done my man, I'm glad a fairly recent newcomer to the adventure world has been awarded such a great honour as SynTax contributor of the year. I'm proud to be so much as friend of one so talented. Brian, Alex and Roy, well done to you too, all scores that in any other year would have seen you further up that placing. Also well done to all the other contributors. The Myth and Magic 'Fountain of Life' figure is now settling in, it is of a wizard (I think) sitting on a tree stump holding a crystal ball in one hand, a fountain of water appearing from nowhere in the other. It is the best of all my others - just fitting for my highest score in SynTax. I love it. Thank you again Sue, Goddess of adventuring it will stand with me with your name in my heart forever. I'll be semi-retiring from the SynTax contribution game for a while now, other projects beckon me, new roads are there to follow. Oh, and JJ, you only just beat me, and I was NOT sure I would win. But if it makes you feel big to think that, then that is just fine. Now, a quick last note about the Falcon. The Falcon is a "music and graphics workstation" and is that and pretty much just that. Many applications have been produced and are still being produced - the total list is quite long including top programs like DA's Picture, Inshape, DA's Vector and hardware like Falcon Wings, Falcon Speed and PowerUp 2. All of these things, despite their number, are SPECIALIST things, are not likely to be available from high street stores, even if the Falcon was doing unbelievably well. Yes, you can use most ST software on it. You may think this is fairly pointless, but take the case of serious programs like the colour DTP program Calamas SL - made for the ST, but on the Falcon far more powerful, faster and generally a much better program. It's all very well saying "if Atari had launched the Falcon a year earlier...", the point is - COULD they - even if they were IBM? The answer is simply no. Development takes time, especially on a tight budget and the manufacturers were also messing Atari about. Oh, so all Atari care about is the UK - that's why they only have 15 staff over here and were waiting months longer than we should for the Jaguar - yeah right! But I do see your point, but again it comes not down to whether Atari SHOULD support the rest of Europe more, but whether they CAN. Also, you say that Commodore supports Europe more, this maybe true, but Commodore are pretty much dead in the USA and in Europe alone they have just lost $160 Million - perhaps THAT'S why Atari are not all over Europe at the moment. Darryl Still was simply saying that someone had started even more lies about them, the situation was not the important part of what he said. The public, the "big" public that is, which doesn't seem to be people like you and I any more, seems to want a powerful, 64-bit ass-kicking console with a whole lot of support and marketing.... and what are Atari making at the moment....? To be honest I now have little faith in the Falcon becoming a standard upgrade for the ST myself. BUT - in the things it excels in - music and graphics, it is doing well. Sales have never been high recently and this is SINCE Atari stopped the main ads about the machine! Still, today Atari are a very good company - they have seen they need a 64-bit console to survive and that is what they are doing. I was going to take what you say for Windows against the Atari system as true - but then I really thought about it. I mean - what's the difference between a new version of Windows and a patch program for the ST Auto folder? None - you still get the benefits of a ROM system. Okay, your XL may have had a bug but you look at Windows 1 or 2 - ergh - I'll keep my Atari bugs!! But you are right - PC has the support AND the software, but does it have the system...? I must admit I'll probably get a nice, new 486 soon - I don't mind and in some ways I look forward to it. In others, I wonder... I know Atari are not perfect - but who are? Acorn, Amstrad, Commodore, IBM and Apple certainly aren't! PS I never mean to 'have a go at' ANY computer system, I sit on the fence, on the whole, but sometimes I adopt a, eerrrm, controversial, writing style to stir up ideas. If you hate what I say sometimes, take it with a pinch of salt. If you think I'm damn out of order - write to me, through either Sue or Mr Judge, and you'll probably find I'm a nice, mature sort of a guy after all. I don't bite (or byte!) - do I Sue? Put it like this - I either try and make you smile or make you think - I don't care which! - if you don't like it, ignore my mouth-foamed ravings! @~I think your comments livened things up considerably, BMK. Glad @~you liked your figure too. - o -