Letters @~Any letters sent to me that aren't marked 'not for publication' @~and which deal with adventure-related matters will be @~considered for inclusion, maybe being edited in the process. ------------------------------------------------------------------ @~As I said in the Editorial, everyone seems very impressed by the @~new SynWin 96 that Alex programmed. Here is one letter about it @~from: Neil Shipman, Winterbourne Dear Sue, Many congratulations to Alex for his brilliant implementation of SynWin 96. Being able to configure the display in a variety of different ways - colour, text style, buttons, etc - is great and the flyovers which pop up to tell you what each icon does are really useful. I particularly liked having the ability to move up and down 1 article or sub-menu just by clicking on the appropriate arrow. The World Wide Web Addresses and the SynWin Notebook are nice touches too. I understand Alex is a self-taught programmer but he has produced a very professional looking, easy to use piece of software which enhances the whole feel of the magazine. SynWin 96 is a real tour de force. Thanks Alex. [P.S. Great to hear that Sue and Alex have now met up. Hope you enjoyed your stay in the UK, Alex.] Neil. ------------------------------------------------------------------ @~And now a warning from Vic Horsley, Haverfordwest A few months ago I answered an advert in a computer magazine saying to send œ5 (postal order only) to receive information and a CD catalogue relating to games of good quality at cheap prices. The company was called 'Buccaneer PC' (very apt) and they gave a box number. Now I was suspicious but decided to give it a go. well, I received a letter back thanking me and saying I'd receive my CD in about seven days, now that is the last I heard. After three or four weeks and another advert appearing I rang the magazine and told them the story. They rang me back but were unable to contact 'Buccaneer PC' themselves so there it rests. The point of this is that I rang one other magazine where I saw the same advert and they also had received complaints. Now it is appearing in other publications and I thought you might like to know or let the members know. @~Vic still hasn't heard anything. Unfortunately, while most @~advertisers are genuine, there are some dodgy customers about. I @~personally don't touch adverts which only use a box number or @~don't have a phone number. I like to know I can talk to a 'real' @~person if I have problems, or go and bang on their front door! @~Vic also wrote again about problems running games through @~Windows 95, following Brian's review of Elder Scrolls With reference to Arena : The Elder Scrolls, review Issue 44, it is best not to run this game through Windows 95 or 3.11, this really being a DOS game, indeed the same can be said for most games giving options for all set ups. I only run games through Windows where that is the only option (which in most cases it isn't). DOS prevents 99% of crashes, hang ups and snags which Windows 95 has yet to get right. As I've said before, Windows 95 is great (except for games) and I for one wouldn't be without it. Still I'm glad I have my old DOS set up. this is not the only option open to anyone, yet it could be the remedy. @~Since getting Win95 (which I love), I've got very stubborn about @~running games through DOS. I get quite miffed when one won't run @~through Win95. ------------------------------------------------------------------ @~Next a tale of woe which someone may be able to explain. Steve McLaren, Margate So far the new computer is behaving alright until I decided to install Stonekeep. I kept the installation to a minimum so I would not take up too much HD space. This was fine, got into the game and found my mouse would not work. Fine, I thought, reconfigure my mouse. Great. Yes, back on line, look around, picked up a few items, tried to go through the door and the computer just went off. The message I got was like 'illegal move' or something, then nothing would work. The only thing I could do was look into my CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT, which looked alright to me apart from the CD-ROM drive which is now an E:\ drive and not a D:\drive. Also I lost my C:\ prompt. I got FP, don't ask me why. So with this my life was thrown into turmoil. What do I do? I tried most things that I know but nothing was happening so I said sod it and shut down. The following day when I got home from work, I decided to ring up the local computer shop and told them my situation. They kindly explained what I should do to bring life back into my computer. They were a bit taken aback when I said that my C:\ prompt came up as FP. This stumped them. So I then switched on the computer and hey presto the C:\ and D:\ prompts were present but not the E:\ drive so I wiped off the CD line in my CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT, rebooted the machine, then reinstalled my driver disk for the CD-ROM but, alas, this still did not work. So I looked into my CONFIG.SYS files and changed the D:\ drive to an E:\ drive, saved this and rebooted the machine and, hey, yes, everything is back on line. Phew, that was hard work. So I said to myself, what do I do with Stonekeep? Try a full installation? Then I thought if it all goes wrong, I know what to do so I went for a full installation, kept my fingers crossed. When it was all done I went into the game and everything was fine, it runs perfectly, no problems. I was wondering if there was a bug or something in the minimal installation. Weird, eh? @~It certainly is. Has anyone else had problems with Stonekeep? I @~would have been having fits if I'd had an experience like that! @~Steve also added ... I do not know if you know that there is a 24 hour computer helpline for anyone with computer problems. No matter what the problem is they will try and assist you in getting the problem put right on your PC. It is simply called Computer Helpline, Tel: 0891 561561. I wonder if you can include this number in SynTax. @~Sure can. Has anyone tried them? - o -