Editorial

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a good Christmas and thanks to
those of you who sent cards and good wishes over the holiday. After
all the preparations, it went much too quickly. Afterwards I
took the plunge and got a larger hard drive.  Having that fitted
and Windows 98 installed wasn't as straightforward, easy, painless
or even successful a job as it should have been and taking
Christmas into account as well, I lost about two weeks. If this
issue gets out on time, it will be a minor miracle because I have
got very behind with work as well.  Still, now everything is near
enough sorted, the new HD will be a big help and you're reading
this so I must have got there in the end.

First of all, many thanks to all of you who heard my plea for
contributions last issue and sent some in. It has made it much
easier to put together this issue to have a good choice in each
section, and has made the magazine's contents more balanced.
There has certainly been a lot of interest in a paper-based
version of SynTax and it is pretty definite that I'll go ahead
with it from Issue 61 (July 1999) which is the beginning of the
eleventh year of SynTax - amazing, isn't it?  Anyway, a few other
things related to this have cropped up during the last two months:

1. The firm I normally get my coloured disks from tells me that
they will no longer be able to supply coloured disks unless I
order 500 of one colour! Since this number of disks would keep me
going for about three years, I can't justify the outlay, so once I
have run out of coloured disks, I'll have to go on to plain black
ones. I HAVE bought enough disks to last until the end of the 10th
year of SynTax so at least Issues 1 to 60 will be on the rainbow
disks.

2. While commenting on paper SynTax, several people have said that
two months is too long to go between issues, so I wondered how
many of you would be interested in a monthly magazine. To keep the
costs down, I would probably make the magazine smaller, maybe 9 or
10 reviews, articles etc instead of 17 per issue, lowering the
cost to around œ2.50 an issue on disk, œ3.50 on paper.

Another advantage of going monthly would be that the mag would be
more up to date.  Anyway, what I have decided to do is put a
questionnaire, and sample 'paper SynTax' page in with this issue
with a few points about possible changes. I'd appreciate it if
you'd return the form during the next month or so if you have to
contact me about anything ... and even more so if you send it
anyway ... regardless of whether or not you've already spoken to
me about the subject because I'd like to get some statistics on
your views so that I can make the best decision for all of us.
You can also tell me via email or by phone. All the names of
people who respond will be entered in a prize draw as a 'thank
you'. Not sure what the prize will be yet but I'll find something
interesting.

Now, Issue 57's competition results. Thanks to everyone who
entered.  The answers were: 7th Guest (or 11th Hour), White
(several people thought blue but the answer was in that issue's
MtG article), Todd Murchison, Inform and 12. Entries came from
Steve Provost, Peter Clark, Charlotte Wolle, Bev Truter, Dorothy
Millard, Linda Turnham and Vic Horsley, and the winners were
Charlotte and Peter. Well done you two and I hope you enjoy,
respectively, The Roberta Williams Anthology and Myth. Thanks
again to Richard Hart for providing the prizes.

I think that's all the news for this issue.  Let me have any final
views on paper SynTax, please, and hopefully by NEXT issue I'll be
able to tell you what's happening. Have a great 1999 - health and
happiness to you all.

                                                       Sue









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