Editorial

Welcome to the latest issue of SynTax. One way to make 2 months
pass very quickly is to edit a magazine. I've usually made a start
on the next issue before you've all got the previous issue and
this issue was no exception. Most readers send in contributions on
disk, but I still have some to type up, new shareware to sort
through and what not. I hate rushing too so I like to get a head
start in case something crops up during the 2 months ... and it
usually does.  The new SynWin 96 was well received last issue.
Thanks to those of you who said how much you liked it; I have
passed on your compliments to Alex! Only one person reported any
problems installing it ... Neil found it didn't overwrite his old
SynTax group and icon so he just deleted those and reinstalled
SynWin 96.

Talking of Alex, we finally met up at the end of October. He had
come to England for the weekend for an MSN meet in Derbyshire and
called in to number 9 for several hours on the 18th. It was really
great to meet him as we've been writing / chatting regularly for a
number of years. Naturally we had our photo taken together and
you'll find that in this issue's screenshots section. It's turning
into a 'meet the SynTax readers' spot!

The day that Alex came here, I also took delivery of a P166 with
32 meg RAM, 2.5 gig hard disk and 8 speed CD. As you may know,
I've been struggling recently with the old 486DX2-66 and only 8
meg of RAM, especially when it came to printing. The new machine
is great. The only real hiccup was in setting up the modem (and
since doing that, the PC now can't find my Zip Drive!). In the end
we had to disable COM port 2 through the BIOS (thanks for the
advice, Alex!) and, finally, I was on-line.  I've signed on with
MSN and can be reached at sue_medley@msn.com.  All I can say about
the Internet is that it is the most amazing place but I'm
determined not to spend _all_ my free time on there, tempting as
it is! I will, of course, be able to download any files or
programs that I think will be of interest or help to you - I've
even found a few for this issue - and collect up-to-date solutions
or patches as soon as they are available. On a similar subject, I
recently lost a long-term SynTax reader who said he now gets all
the game help he needs from the Internet so no longer needed
SynTax as much.  Personally I can still see lots of reasons for
supporting SynTax too! But, seriously, I guess it will be
something like this that finally kills off the fanzines - I am
more grateful than ever to those of you who continue to support
the magazine. As long as enough of you need it, SynTax will keep
going. Interestingly the readership last issue was the largest
ever (109 disks at the last count), a dozen of which were on the
Amiga and about 8 on the ST, the majority being PC users, not
surprisingly.

Richard asked me to point out that a hint given in Issue 43 for
Chaos Strikes Back was a hoax! I dragged it off a shareware CD and
assumed it was gen-u-ine. Not so, evidently. Richard, who worked
at Mirrorsoft at the time Chaos came out, said it was originally
published in a mag as an April Fool's joke and they had quite a
few calls from people who couldn't get it to work. If you found
the same thing, now you know why! Sorry 'bout that.


Now a few points. There is a bit of a shortage of contributors
this issue, mainly on the reviews front, which means I have used
more than usual by JJ, Bev and myself to make up the numbers. The
summer is always a dry time for contributions, there are so many
interesting outdoors things to do in the fine weather so most of
you (and me!) don't use your computers much. Now that the chilly
weather is closing in, can I remind you to consider setting finger
to keyboard to write even a short review of a game you're
currently playing if the mood takes you? Remember you don't have
to complete a game to review it, so long as you make it clear how
far you've got into it.

On a general note, can I quickly remind people who order solutions
to enclose a STAMPED addressed envelope together with their stamps
in payment. Cheers.

As promised there are some map files in this issue, as well as
some preview screenshots, making 22 GIFs in all. Now, when I open
and close about 12 of these pix one after another, I run into

memory problems (despite having 32 meg!) - Alex, on the other
hand, has no problems at all. I'd be interested to know if anyone
else runs into difficulties; if so will you let me know exactly
what you did and what error message you got. Ta.

Last but not least a big thanks to John Wilson of Zenobi Software
for converting the graphics files from ST format to Amiga format
for me after I asked for help last issue.

It's rather early to say this but - have a great Christmas and a
healthy and happy New Year. And maybe I'll see you on the Net?

                                              Sue






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