Editorial Welcome to Issue 54 of SynTax! It's that time of the year again when I announce the SynTax Contributor of the Year. For 1997-98 the winner is - James Judge. Well done James. You have contributed steadily all the time you have been taking the magazine and I am grateful to you for all your hard work. It was very closely fought at the end and James only just beat Brian Burke, who was in turn only slightly ahead of Bill Commons, Alex van Kaam and Diana Griffiths. All the winners have won Myth and Magic figures and free issues of SynTax. James's figure is on a wooden base with an engraved plaque. My congratulations and thanks to all the winners, and thanks too to everyone who has helped make SynTax such a good read over the last year. Everyone has a chance to win a prize if they keep contributing so please keep doing so. It's a beautiful day as I'm writing this; the sun is shining and I really feel that summer is on the way. Though the software usually slows down a bit during the warmer months, there are still a lot of great programs on the way, not the least of which is Might and Magic VI which I am very keen to see (out now in the States). But in the mean time, I'm still getting quite a few helpline calls. If anyone is having problems with Black Dahlia, there is a patch available for it on the Net and I understand that if you have an early version of the game, the patch _will_ be necessary if you're going to finish it. If anyone doesn't have Net access and wants it, please let me know. I don't mind downloading stuff for people - within reason, of course! I only have a slowish modem. I'm still playing Curse of Monkey Island - excellent. I enjoyed the first 2 games in the series a lot and COMI is just as good - from its initial introductory scenes through to the game itself. If you liked the 'insults' section of the first game, you'll enjoy a revamped version in this one. The humour is good and a few shots are taken at other adventures such as Myst. Good fun. The computer is ... touch wood ... working well again. In the end, after last issue, I reformatted the hard drive and just started from scratch. It seems to have cured whatever was wrong with it and I now just get an occasional crash like everyone else, not the constant ones I was getting. Work wise I am getting busier and, after leaving PC Mart, I am in the process of writing my first columns for a new magazine edited by Paul Rigby and Derek dela Fuente, called Form@t Power. It will be out every fortnight and I hope you will read it! I'll be writing a column which will cover various types of software for adult education, reference, home office, lifestyle etc. I really enjoy writing so I am looking forward to working on the magazine. As I don't have the PC Mart advert any more, the SynTax enquiries have slowed down but I still get some each month through old adverts or mentions on the Net. MerC, who has taken the magazine from the start, and who recently got a writable CD ROM drive, has generously put together a CD for the first 50 issues of SynTax and is offering it to readers at a very reasonable price, œ10. It is certainly an ideal way to store and run the magazine and will save a lot of HD space. You'll find an order form for the CD in with this issue of the magazine but we can only make this offer to people who have taken every issue, for obvious reasons. If you want the CD but haven't taken 1-50, there will be a surcharge according to the number of issues missed. This will make it more fair for readers who _have_ taken every issue. After quite a bit of thought I've settled on an extra 25p for every issue between 1-20, 50p for issues 21-40, and 75p for issues 41-50. So if you hadn't taken any of the back issues, the CD would cost œ32.50 of which œ10 would go to MerC. I think this is the only way to be fair to everyone. Well, I think that's it again. I can't believe the next issue will be in July - part way through the summer. Let's hope it's a good one! Sue - o -