Letters Any letters or e-mails received on an adventuring-related topic may be reprinted in here unless marked 'not for publication'. ------------------------------------------------------------------ @~First, an enthusiastic letter from: Bill Commons, Margate I have been playing two great games, Fallout 1 and 2, which I can recommend. I read that the UK versions were censored so when my daughter went to Florida last Christmas I asked her to buy them for me in the US. The censoring removed the children from the games so certain quests such as finding little Jonnie will not be available. Also another child hides a quest item in a pile of rocks so I assume this will be lost. The other children steal items from you and you have to buy them back from the store keepers. I understand that you can download the Kids Patch from Interplay's Web site, if you want to update the UK version. The quests that are offered are subject to the character that you create so the replay value is very good. The games are huge and have many locations to explore, the view is top down like Baldur's Gate. I chose a low charisma number and I am finding the last few locations in Fallout 2 very hard. @~Bill also sent some walkthroughs he downloaded from the Net @~which have been added to the archives. ------------------------------------------------------------------ @~Next a useful bit of info from: Tom Lorimer, by e-mail I've been having lots of problems when trying to play old text adventures, especially the AGT ones. I kept getting Runtime errors and the games just refused to run. Anyway, after talking with Bev, we discovered that the culprit was the Pentium computer. It seems that it's too fast a machine to run these games. As I didn't want to lose the ability to replay these old games, I searched through all my old shareware CD ROM disks and found the answer. It's a program called 'Slowdos' and it immediately solved my problem. Now, when I want to play an old game, all I have to do is to type 'Slowdos' followed by the name of the BAT file which runs these old AGT games, and away I go. In case other SynTax readers are having the same problem and don't know how to cure it, I've attached the 'Slowdos' program to this e-mail. @~... And I've put it in the library and on this issue's disk. If @~anyone else has got a useful program that they'd like to @~recommend, please do. ------------------------------------------------------------------ @~Next, an email from: Peter Clark, by e-mail I have recently received a letter from Ron Day whose e-mail address is ron.day@breathemail.net concerning a charity called TWAM, a national concern whose aim is to collect unwanted tools etc and, after servicing them, to get them shipped out to third world countries where they are desperately needed. I can personally vouch for the organisation as the current president is a personal friend of mine and is a member of the same church to which I belong. I should be grateful if you could find space to print the following appeal in the next issue of SynTax. Perhaps you could also print a bit about what TWAM is all about as well. Sincerely, Peter Clark. ------------------------------------------------------------------ @~And here is the info from Ron Day which Peter sent. TWAM (Tools with a Mission) want to send some old computers out to Uganda (386s and 486s). Some of these have operating systems and some do not. Microsoft want us to buy a licence for Windows 98 and Microsoft Works and pay an extra fee so that we can DOWNGRADE the software to MSDOS, Windows 3.1 and Microsoft Works version 1 or 2 on these older machines. However, if we can provide an original set of discs for each machine then they have no problem with us sending the machines to the third world. My request is that you tell your computer-owning friends and ask them to search their cupboards/disc boxes for old MSDOS, Windows 3.1 or 3.11 and Microsoft Works discs. If you have any, then could I ask you to send them to me at the address below with a note signing over the software rights to "the recipient". Microsoft tell me that the legal side of this is that if you have upgraded your software and you no longer use an older version then it is Ok for you to pass the older version to another user provided that they are given the original discs. We could also do with some modems (what did you do with your old 14.3K?) so that they can be used for basic e-mail. Old hard discs of at least 40MB without compression would also be useful. It is regretted that we are not able to pay postage on anything that you may be able to supply us but your local Baptist Church may be able to assist if you cannot afford it. Thanks again, Ron Day Ron Day, The Manse, New Street, Stradbroke, EYE, Suffolk IP12 5JJ ------------------------------------------------------------------ @~Next, from David Hayward, by e-mail I really like the split file extension that you supplied with last issue. It is handy for when I take large word files into college. @~Several people have said they find it a neat program to use. ------------------------------------------------------------------ @~Someone liked paper SynTax ... From Thomo (extract) I was going to write after receiving the first paper issue of SynTax but like everything else it's "I'll do it tomorrow" and it never gets done; right here goes. Yes, yes, yes, I like the paper version of SynTax, much prefer it to the disk. I can sit outside in the sun (?) and read it at my leisure. Can't very well lug the computer outside, nowhere to plug it in, unless one has a lap top, which I haven't and probably never will. So, yes, a brilliant idea going paper-wise. ------------------------------------------------------------------ @~So did ... Ian Gunby, Sutton in Ashfield Firstly I must compliment you on the quality of the paper magazine. I think I was getting a little tired of the discs and finding less and less to interest me as an STE owner, but now it all seems more refreshing. However, what am I to do with these free discs? I just get the message that I can 'print' or 'show' the disc. I suspected I might need an 'unzipper' or something like that but I couldn't find anything in the ST library discs. Are the discs only for PC owners? @~Erm, yes. Well deduced. 5 points to Ian, none to Sue! I did a @~special disk for Ian with ST versions of as many of the programs @~as exist. Luckily many of the adventure files, like the Inform @~games, are ST compatible as long as you have the correct run- @~time. - o -