Fred 54
Disk Magazine
Submitted by Dan Dooré on Tuesday, May 22, 2018 - 14:02.
Download
Release Year
1995
Copyrights
Copyrights Granted
Copyright Provenance
Description
Issue 54
Item | Author | Description |
---|---|---|
Menu | Lee Willis Graham Goring | |
Magazine | News Of Sam C, Brian Says Hi | |
Letters | Price Changes, Sambus, Old Codger! | |
Fortress | Tim Paveley | Bomb The Other Player's Castle |
Solitaire | Bob Brunsden | The Ball Game, Not The Card Game |
Stevie T | Search: “Steve Taylor ” | Useful Utilities From Steve Taylor |
Tnt Demo | Matt Round | Demo Of The Highly Acclaimed Game |
Anonimity | Graham Goring | The Continued Adventures... |
E-Tunes | Peter Moore | Music Written On E-Tracker |
Mods | Graham Goring Martin O'Connell | Converted Amiga Modules |
Lcp? | David Handley | Graphical Demo/Game, Similar To Little Computer People |
Rachel 3+4 | Andrew Hodgkinson | The Comedy Continues... |
Random Numbers | Darren Martin | Generates Truely Random Numbers |
Pretty | Darren Martin | Makes A Little Pattern (Aah!) |
Shoot-Em-Up | James R Curry | Simple, But Well-Written Shoot-Em-Up |
Magazine
CA OH DEARY, DEARY ME Exam leave - don't you just love it. The feeling you get when you know you've got an exam the next day which you haven't revised for, but you really can't force yourself to revise. Not forgetting the deeply guilty feeling when you're playing on your computer (or writing editorials) instead of revising. Oh, joy. Well, what has happened since my last appearance? No tellings off from CM this month unfortunately, so that cuts off one topic of conversation. You'll all be pleased to know that I've got a new battery for my watch - only 5 weeks after the last one ran out. Cheers, Dad. Speaking of Dad, you won't be interested to know that I spent last weekend at my Dad's house and put on lots of weight eating curries and drinking, erm, liquids. Not to mention watching England's triumphant win over Ireland in the rugby. Let's hope they thrash Scotland when they play them as well. That should warrant a phone call to Colin Macdonald. Actually while I'm talking about my Dad, I think I should embarrass him. HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY DAD! (Feb. 9th) CA Editorial (Hey, a sensible title!) Editing FRED is constantly using more and more thought power, as any ideas I had to tell you all are rapidly running out. The other day, I decided to find out how Brian managed to complete 30+ page editorials every month for about two years. Much to my shock, it turns out that he only had to think up some stuff to write for a maximum of 5 pages, and the rest of the readership would write articles for him. The rest was obviously filled up with news and disc contents, but these were the same size as mine. As soon as Colin finishes all the hard work he's doing (the poor duckey has been at university from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm for five days a week for the past few weeks), I'm going to clamp down on his lack of contributions. To be fair though, he is working hard. I rang him the other night and he sounded dreadful. Snigger. And as for the rest of you, if you have any ideas for an article, whether it's SAM related or not, get it in the post. You can't expect me to write twenty pages of humour - you'd fall asleep anyway. I look forward to the masses of articles... CA TICK, TOCK, TICK, TOCK... Still waiting.... CA CO-INCIDENCES LIKE THIS SCARE ME No sooner have I typed in a page of moaning, I receive (as if by magic) an article! Darren Martin must be psychic - he can't have read that. I think I feel a fainting session coming on. Anyway, thanks to Darren Martin for it, and you fans of book reading will find a review of Terry Pratchett and Stephen Brigg's excellent book, 'The Discworld Companion' after the credits. Well, it's Winter. Thankfully near the end, but where has it been? Not once have I looked out of my window only to see an old man slip over. Nor have I seen a dog bowing its head in shame because its owners have made it wear a coat. Where I live we've only had 10 minutes of snow. What's happening. Am I never going to be able to throw a snowball at the neighbours' dogs ever again? Alas, it seems not. But who cares. It's too damn cold when it snows anyway. Roll on Summer, that's what I say. By July, I'll have finished with school for good, it'll be warm, and I'll think of a decent topic of conversation for these pages. Brrr, it's freezing. CA SNIFF... ACHOO! Yes, I'm back. After two days of being horribly ill, and a day of being forced to walk up hills on a visit to Exeter university, I'm putting on a brave face, and finishing FRED off in time for Monday the 6th. Heck, if it's a choice of taking the sort of rest that someone in my position should or being loyal to you readers, I'd do my duty every time. If you wish to reward this hard work, I'll arrange a contribution hat. I had another massive heart attack this afternoon when a man came to my door and told me he'd run over our cat. Thankfully, Dobson (my cat) went straight underneath the middle of the car, somehow missing the wheels. He's lost a tooth and battered himself a bit, but luckily he'll live. The car driver was very kind. He was really apologetic and even rang up this evening to find out how Dobson was. Sorry to those people who rang me up, only to be told to ring later, but we were a little concerned. And finally, before the news, I'd just like to say, "Og vub". CA NEWS It turns out that there was a small problem with one of the FRED discs that was sent out last month. One of our readers (sorry, I don't know your name) received his issue of FRED 53 and the shutter at the top of the disc was faulty - I assume it was bent. Unfortunately, he continued to use it and when he pulled it out, it yanked out the heads or something else incredibly important and completely ruined his disc drive. Luckily, the post office are paying him compensation, but let this be a warning to other SAM owners. If you do receive your copy of FRED and the shutter is damaged, don't use the disc. Instead send it back to Colin Macdonald for replacement. The same applies to faulty discs. If the issue is faulty when you receive it, send it to Colin, and he'll send a new one the same day. If the disc gets corrupted and it's no longer the current issue, send an SAE when you return the disc. CA NEWS Terrible news about the Pentium processor, isn't it? For those of you who haven't heard, some mathematical person who uses his PC 586 for doing his sums on (but then checks them on paper - wierd bloke) did a certain type of sum and found out he got a different answer when he worked it out! He then told millions of people via E-mail, and lots of businesses complained and lost interest in Pentium (try to control your laughter please). Eventually, Pentium agreed to do the correct thing and are offering free replacement chips to those with a faulty processor! Now (ha ha ha) lots of people are getting the free chips, buying a mother board for £90, a case, hard drive, floppy drive and accessories and building their own P.C. for about £600 cheaper! And now a joke that my maths teacher told me. Q: Why wasn't the Pentium called the 586? A: 'Coz when you add 100 to 486 on the Pentium you get 585.983 CA NEWS And now, I can proudly announce FRED's next big release. This is important news, so you'd expect Colin Macdonald to announce it, but he's too busy. Fame and power is mine. Yes, the next release is a C-compiler. If there is anyone out there who hasn't heard of C, it's a completely different programming language (it's more structured), has had literally hundreds of books written for it and is very widely used, especially by PC owners. And now, C-compiler can bring it to your SAM. It compiles 'C' into m/c and will have most features of other C compilers, as well as all common libraries. But what does this mean? Basically, you will be able to take source code from any C program off the PC and use it on your SAM, giving SAM owners access to THOUSANDS of new programs. This really is a must for everyone. An April launch is looking likely, and the price will be £15 - CA NEWS extremely cheap when you consider that C-compilers on other machines usually cost about £80. Buy a PC mag and check it out, it's true. There should be comprehensive details about this in the coming months. The next great news is that the date for the next SAM and Speccy show has been confirmed - April the 29th. The place is going to be Quedgley again, so get your time booked off work now! I'll probably have more details month. And the other bit of good news this month is that you can now order TnT and Sophistry from FRED, so get those cheques in the post. There is a TnT demo on this disc, so you'll know basically what the games about. It has been programmed by Matt Round and has 17 levels in the full version. The demo version shows a Mona Lisa mick-take, but the full version contains lots of others including Gazza, Roger Rabbit, Captain Kirk and oodles more. CA NEWS For details of Sophistry, read my review in the letters section. It's a completely honest review, so it's a good job I liked it, else I could be out of a job! Both TnT and Sophistry are £9-95 each. Both are incredible bargains, and should be snapped up quicker than a Scot snaps up a 10 pence piece. Sorry, Colin, don't mean it. Oh yes, nearly forgot. These two delicious pieces of software can be bought for a BARGAIN £9 each is you're a subber. If you aren't, then become a subber and save £1-90. And now, prepare yourselves for a shock... BM He's Back!!! Hi all. How's things? Has life without "moi" been bearable then? What? You didn't notice I'd gone? Oh. I can't believe it was issue 50 that I last spoke to you all. October 1994 seems so long ago now! Jeez. You'll be pleased to hear that I haven't been kicked off my course at Uni yet. I passed all the December exams, and I've just handed in a massive C project - nearly 50K of source code and a 5000 word report. Actually that's part of the reason why I'm writing this - now that it's out of the way I've nothing left to fill the aching void that most people would call a social life (sob). Healthwise, things have been a bit disappointing (I bet you wish I hadn't bothered writing now. "Mr Doom and Gloom" you'll be calling me). I've had a cold for the past three weeks. The only plus point is that I've proved once and for all that getting blootered is NOT a cold cure. (I can be very gullible at times) BM Doo de doo de doo Christmas. Ah, there's a tale or two to be told from the Chrimble season. Apart from the fact that Wm Low (which is becoming more and more a Tesco every week) had me in working full time for more or less the whole holiday, this was a fine larf. Christmas Eve - up into Dundee for a few drinks, stayed in the pub until 12:30am, and then a large group of us trundled down to the casino. You must think I'm a complete addict to gambling now, but I'm not. Not quite. Anyway, I ended up winning a tenner there which was nice. Hold on - we went up to the casino on Wednesday 21st Dec as well. (I won £25 that night) I think I *am* starting to become addicted to that place! And the week after Hogmany I went (won another £10). AND I went just this Saturday passed (won £20). So over the past four visits I've made £65. Heh heh heh. Anybody want to buy my "system"? BM What I Did Over Xmas Christmas Day - the usual affair with the relations over. High point of the first part of the day was the Cat in a Bag that I gave my uncle. It's this little motorised ball which wobbles around randomly. You put it in a brown paper bag and stick a bit of fur in the end and it really does look like there's a cat in the bag! It drove the dogs wild! Before I left FRED, did I mention that we got a new dog? Cindy, the old one, died in the second week of September which was sad. She was pretty ancient though, and she went before she really lost all control of herself. Our new one is a little rat type thing, and now that we've got two very young, very energetic dogs in the house you can imagine the chaos that we regularly endure. But I digress. Christmas night - party!!!!!!!!!! (Can't remember much of it though....) BM Hogmanay Review No doubt you're all a little curious as to how I spent this traditionally drunken night. Especially after the exploits of 93/94 New Year which I expect Colin has explained in more detail than I let him do last year. Well. Let's see. I was at this "party", with 5,999 other people. The music was loud. Have you guessed yet? No? Well, I spent my Hogmany at the Rezerection near Edinburgh. Yes, it was a rave. No, I did not take any drugs. Neither did the friends I was with. Now that the obvious question is out of the way, I'll elaborate: Rezerection is a regular all-night event in Scotland. From 8pm until 8am, 6,000 people dance themselves silly in this massive hangar type thing, carried away on a wave of euphoria (I'll avoid that other infamous "E" word because people get the wrong idea) by the best bands and DJs around. And yes it is legal, licensed etc. There are tons of security guys, medics, and a smattering of police. And nobody died. BM Hogmanay Review The music? Techno, obviously. A mixture of hard, hard, fast fast bass-and-little-else stuff which frankly gets rather tedious after a while, and the piano-ridden anthems with lyrics derived from the old "feel so high/take me higher/feel so real/feel the energy" stable. And it was brill! The music, forgetting the pretty dismissive tone of that earlier sentence, was superb. Okay, it's shallow and formulaic, but once you start dancing to it, even *without* drugs (I can't emphasize that part enough - it's only now that I'm beginning to realise the amount of prejudice directed at ravers. We do not all do drugs!), it seems like the most beautiful music ever written. It's hard to explain. I suppose it's kind of like running or cycling or weight training. Once you get started, and provided you've got the right attitude towards it, you get a superb, and *wholly natural* high. But when you're dancing away, after half an hour or so you blend in so well with the rhythm and the bass that you feel just great. And when they throw in those cheesy piano riffs and mellow flute sounds it's indescribable. BM Hogmanay Review I have to recommend raves. Go along to just the one. Get a couple of mates, and go to a techno night at the local nightclub. Have a couple of vodkas to relax and feel more at ease (not too many though, or you'll just be an uncoordinated wreck), and try and get into the music. You'll feel very self-conscious at first, naturally. I did, and still do when I start dancing. You soon realise that nobody's going to laugh at you for being silly or anything, and as long as you feel confident you look fine. The best thing to do is just go for it. Raving is very different from head-banging. You move your whole body, arms and legs. You don't just wobble your head back and forth. Raving doesn't give you whiplash. But back to "the Rez" as it's called. What a night. Bangin', kickin', bouncin', and all the other cliched terms which are as much a part of the scene as the music itself. Another thing - you should see the women at these events - woah! BM Hogmanay Review Bands playing at the Hogmanay Rez included Q-Tex, The Rhythmic State, and Bass X. DJs included Scott Brown, Tom Wilson, Mikey B, Paul Elstak, Tin Tin, and of course Lenny Dee (God to some people). And plenty much more, mark my words. If these names mean nothing to you, don't worry. Ultra-Sonic weren't there, which is possibly my only down point of the night. U.S. are stunning. Neither was Bass Generator, who's just been voted DJ of '94 by M8 readers. Hopefully I'll be going to see him play at the Fubar in Stirling this weekend, but it's not guaranteed. Anyway, to round off: Rezerection was a fine way to spend Hogmanay. I am glad I chose to do that instead of the usual going out, getting drunk, catching pneumonia. Let's hope the 95/96 Rez is just as good! It does feel weird having no hangover on 1st January though... BM Techno Stuff CD time! I've bought quite a lot in the four months since you last heard from me. Here's a brief run through: DJ Sasha & Jon Digweed: Renaissance - house music of the handbag variety, according to Select, and it's true in the nicest way. You can certainly dance to it, but it has a nice friendly poppy feel to it. Tracks like Sunscreem's Perfect Motion and Moby's Go get the remix treatment, and come out sounding excellent on this 3 CD, 4 hour compilation. Well worth buying. Various: Energise. Compiled by top dance mag M8, this is intended as a cross-section of the Scottish dance scene just now. It is a brilliant CD, and has old favourites like Power of Love by Q-Tex, E-I-E-I-O by Chill FM and that classic of the dancefloors, played THREE TIMES at Rez, Soap on a Rope by the Rhythmic State. Other tracks, while less well known, are by no means crap. Highlights include Isotope by Auriga, Turn Up The Power by N-Trance (currently #3 in the charts with Set Me Free, which I think is amazing) and Bouncy by Analgesia. BM Techno Stuff Very much a CD to dance your heart out to, I think it fulfils its purpose very well in reflecting the state of Scottish techno (which for my money is light years better than English stuff). If this isn't available "down south", send me £15 and I'll post one down to you (that includes p+p, so you're not being done here). The Grid: Evolver. You'll have heard Swamp Thing - you know, the one with the banjo? Well, forget that. The rest of this album is a lot better than Swamp Thing might have you think. The best way to describe this band is as a more charty Orbital, with bass you can't quite dance to, but it certainly gets your toes tapping. An excellent CD to listen to, but don't expect to find much of it at raves. The local nightclub, maybe. The Stone Roses: The Second Coming. Okay, it's not techno but I haven't deserted the indie scene completely, you know. The only thing I have to say about this is: it's not as good as their first. That said, could *any* album have beaten that stunning BM Techno Stuff (ahem) debut? I think not. It's a good album, but following the prequel, still a disappointment. Single of the year 1994: The Future, by Dyewitness. A Dutch group of hardcore lunatics, Dyewitness will surely be a huge name in '95. Listen to this song, and you will not disagree. It is a classic, easily up these with the likes of Annihilating Rhythm and, um, all those other classics! ***** And that's it from me. For another six months, probably. There are other CDs I could review, for example QFX, Essential Clubscene, Laurent Garnier, Journey By DJ: Danny Rampling, and the new Suede one, but I'll leave that for now. 'Tis getting late, and my fingers are bored of hitting plastic keys. So. Until next time - see ya! Brian McConnell, Bad Dancer Extraordinaire 01-02-1995 CA DISC CONTENTS To begin with, I owe everyone who has contributed a program or letter a MASSIVE thank you. After the small amount of letters I was getting, I stuck a sarcastic letter in FRED 52, and either that or another of my endless pleas seems to have sparked everyone into life. In fact, this month I had too many letters! It's been decided to hold a few back until next month because there was about 65K of letters before compression!!! I've also been sent the largest monthly amount of programs, which really is very pleasing. Everything I've received in the last month will be kept separate and I will try and use them when it is possible. Thanks again, and please, keep them coming! Slot 'D' brings us Fortress, a game by Tim Paveley. If anyone remembers 'Dracula' way back on FRED 24A, they'll already have the basic idea. The game is for two players, and is a game of skill and strategy. Each player controls one army and one fort. The idea of the game is to fire the missiles into the air and CA DISC CONTENTS get them to hit the enemy base. Each player has up to 3 shots each turn depending on how many soldiers they have left. You have to decide on the angle and velocity of the shot(s), and each will be altered slightly by the force of the wind. A near miss kills a few soldiers, a hit on the innocent people in the village means some of your soldiers desert you and a direct hit on the enemy results in total death of his 100 men. Dracula was great fun, and this is just as fun and more advanced. The map takes a while to draw, but is superbly accurate. The next contribution comes from Bob Brunsden. It's called Solitaire, and is the ball game, not the card game. My dad bought the game years back, and I only completed it once. At least that proves it's possible. It's a simple game, but beautifully presented by Bob. He's converted some music and the graphics, although simple, look pretty stunning. The idea is to end up with one ball. You do this by removing balls one at a time. This isn't easy to explain. Let me use a CA DISC CONTENTS diagram. Ball 2 is able to jump over ball 1 into the gap between 3 and 1. Then, ball 1 is Step 1... 3 _ 1 2 _ removed. Following this, ball 3 Step 2... 3 2 _ _ _ can then jump over ball 2, due to Step 3... _ _ 3 _ _ the new positions of the balls. Ball 3 will end up where ball 1 started and ball 2 is removed. If that's not clear, play it a bit and you'll soon understand. Thanks Bob. Next, Steve Taylor returns to FRED, with some nice utilities. As you'll probably know, I'm pretty useless when it comes to clever things like machine code, but you'll be pleased to know that Steve has provided his own instructions/explanations. There are utilities for mouse and timer owners. There may be something else, but I'm thick, so don't ask me. LCP? (note the question mark - we don't breach copyright) is a demo from Dave 'FLM' Handley. No, don't get excited, it's not the actual game, or a demo of the actual game, but it is a very CA DISC CONTENTS enjoyable little demo. You control a person who looks remarkably like a character in a game that slips my mind, and walk around in a house a bit like the house in a game that slips my mind. In this game that slips my mind, the character does things logically, but in LCP? you decide what the man does. It's got 7 or 8 nice animations (one may be X-rated. It's a bath scene!), so have a good laugh. By the way, Dave, your Christmas music IS good. End of argument. MATT ROUND FANS READ THIS NOW!!! At last, as promised in FRED 53, we have a playable demo of Matt's forthcoming game, TnT from Revelation. It's similar to Bounty Bob on the Spectrum, but the SAM seems to make the game a million times better. Matt's only giving away one level (unless there's a secret one I can't find), but it's a big enough taster to make you send off for the full game now! Basically, I LOVE IT! CA DISC CONTENTS This months menu (I always forget to do this bit) was done by Lee Willis. The screen has been done by Graham Goring and the code and music by Lee 'Bubel' Willis. This time, there is a bouncy scroll (but of course, you'll know that already!). Good to see Lee improving his machine code skills. I do have another demo, but I'll save it for another issue (it's far too much like the menu!). Aninomity has somehow managed to come up with 3 more stories this month. They are continuations of Spamtrek TNG (Shocked? So was I!), Cereal and Starbore. Some quite wonderful screens have been sent in by Martin O'Connell and Robert Van Der Veeke this month. Thanks chaps. In bits and bobs, we have a true random number generator and a "pwetty pattern" drawer from Darren Martin and a playable Gamesmaster shoot-em-up from James Curry. CA DISC CONTENTS FRED are now proud to present the previously unseen, (well on FRED, anyway) Rachel 3 and 4!!! At last, you can continue with the story. It's very, very funny. Those of you who haven't read it yet, you really do want to. Thanks go to Andrew Hodgekinson for this. The story continues next month. Graham Goring's been hard at it again, and decided that Archimedes conversions of his screens weren't good enough even for the adverts section, so has redone two of the adverts on SAMpaint. Take a look, and see what this wonderful graphical artist can do. I've been kind enough to put 3 (yes, three) mods on this month. Two are from Martin O'Connell and one from Graham Goring. Unfortunately, I've only been sent one E-tune this month, which is a bit tiresome. I'll have to hunt down some more and pray that they haven't been used already. The one I have so far is from Peter Moore. CA YOU'RE ALL TOO GOOD TO ME Editor: Colin 'Thats 4 issues now!' Anderton Thanks to: Tim Paveley Andrew Hodgekinson Bob Brunsden Stewart Skardon Steve Taylor Matt Round Martin O'Connell Brian 'Raver' McConnell Dave Handley James Curry Graham Goring Frank Harrop George Robson Robert Van Der Veeke Phil Glover Darren Martin FRED was brought to you by the number 2 and the letter Zee [redacted] A book review follows >>>>> Bye DM Book Review The Discworld Companion by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs £14.99 in hardback from Victor Gollancz To sst a few things straight before I begin(No.Wait...that is a beginning).TDC is not a new Discworld novel,nor is it a plain old reference book written by some geek with a PC more powerful than himself(or herself).TDC is an encyclopedia of the Discworld taking information from all the novels up to Soul Music.Terry Pratchett himself has also contributed new material,making this "the definitive-and only-guide" to the Discworld. Firstly there is an introduction by Pratchett,modestly explaining his astonishment at the success of the novels(then again all authors do that).Then Stephen Briggs clears his metap- horical throat to give us an introduction to the Companion; describing the artistic licence he has taken with some of the inconsistencies throughout the novels. Now we come to the A to Z guide:Each entry is,on average,150 DM Book Review words;items covered in more detail in other entries are in CAPITALS;and the novel in which the entry is found is also menioned. Places are listed with their populations,capital cities, principal ports,geographial position,etc. The guilds of Ankh-Morpork are listed along with their mottos(in Latatian:the Discworlds near Latin Old Language),coat of arms, brief history and type of members. There are various lists,including:animals,flora,books,inns and deities. Many entries are supplemented with drawings,diagrams and maps. Items with a regullr occurance in the novels are given large and detailed entries,these include: -Magic,its different types and users -Ankh-Morpork,its history,culture(?!),residents,trade,law,rulers -Unseen Unversity,its history,wealth and organisation,study courses,ceremonies and a guided tour -Death with his house and vocation. DM Book Review After the guide comes 12 pages of Discworld history,not the fictional side,but a history of the successes and developments of the novels.Publishing contracts,initial establishment,appeal and Pratchetts philosophy are discussed.Developments include stage adaptions,figurines,theme music and computer games(the first being on the Spectrum).At the end is an informal interview with Terry Pratchett and a browse through his fan mail and email The presentation of the book is nice with 2 columns of entries per page.Slightly off-white paper and sketchy drawings give the book an olde feel and the inside cover is decorated with a map of downtown Ankh-Morpork. This book is a must for fans of Pratchetts discworld stuff,some of it may mean a lot if your not up to date with the novels.The only problem now is that with the release of "Intresting Times" the Companion is out of date. CA SNEAKY LITTLE ADVERT For the first (and I promise, last time) I'm going to use my power as editor to make a few quid. I've got a Game Gear which I need to sell in order to raise money for my holiday with 9 of my mates to Newquay (100,000 astro-viruses per litre in the sea according to Dispatches. Apparently 10 per litre can make you ill!). I'm selling it and everything I have with it for £150 - well under half the price it's worth! Sega game gear (the one you carry about). Including a.c. adaptor, carry case and a couple of cheat books. Games include: Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic Chaos, Slider, Indiana Jones, Shinobi, Spider-man, Crystal Warriors, Defenders of Oasis (Brilliant RPG), Columns, a foreign tank game, Super Monaco Grand Prix, Mick Mouse Castle of Illusion and a couple more that I can't find, but will very soon! It's in excellent condition, and if anyones interested, give me a ring on [redacted]
Letters & Reviews
Letter From Andrew Collier Dear Colin, It was with a mixture of surprise and dismay that I read of your decision to stop paying out for contributions. Although I realise that in these days of inflation it is necessary to cut costs wherever possible, the payment for contributions has been a vital factor in the success of the industry that is Fred magazine. Obviously, this is an issue which will affect very many of your contributors, (without whom, you have in the past quite correctly said, Fred would not be possible,) but also your readers. I am sure that I am not alone in feeling that an increase in cost of, say, 50p an issue would be a reasonable price to pay if that meant contributions would still be paid for. Similarly I do not object to second class post being used. However, the cash incentive to programmers is of immeasurable value. Personally, I am not in it just for the money, but obviously the reward for good work does come into the picture Letter From Andrew Collier somewhere, and a bit of spare cash goes a long way to encourage me to write the next program. Without this incentive, it is true that programmers will probably continue to program, but not necessarily for Fred. Indeed, without payment, donated material is by definition Public Domain, and as such you cannot expect it to be kept as Fred exclusive, neither before nor after it has been on your disk. Particularly in areas such as machine code demos there will no longer be any disadvantages at all to the programmer in distributing software via PD libraries. And so it continues into all other areas of programming. Despite your pleas for more contributions (which were immediately, and unsubtley followed by this shock news) I feel it unlikely that more programmers will work harder for this "chance" of payment, as opposed to the definite payment for anything on the disk. Naturally, in the unlikely chance of a programmer being Letter From Andrew Collier absolutely determined to get the rare cash prize, he will program to the best of his abilities. All the better you would think, until you consider that each good program will take so much longer to finish than usual that the frequency of his output will decrease to such an extent that you will be forced to put other, smaller, less impressive programs onto the disk instead, and the magazine will not have benefitted as a result. The only effect would be to the detrement of the quality of the magazine, and since you have stated your aim to be "to keep the same quality at the same price" then you are, regrettably, bound to fail. This brings me to a further point; you say that the "best" program receives £10, but that you will not give the prize to a regular bunch of talented programmers as "it is fairer that way." A debateable point in my opinion; especially since the regular programmers clearly do most of the work, and by your reasoning are likely to get the least credit for that. This is invalid logic, and if you eventually decide to keep the star Letter From Andrew Collier contribution idea, then I would suggest that you judge each program on its own merits, and not on whether a particular programmer has won before. Furthermore, I will ask you what exactly is your definition of "best"? One man's trash is another man's treasure, they say. I might, for example, write a machine coded, mouse compatable, mode 4, menu driven mines game with sampled sound effects and game features never before seen on any other Sam version (for example!); an editor might put it on the disk, but be bored of the idea having seen awful Basic attempts so many times, and think to himself "Oh no, not another one of those" ignoring the cash prize. One casting vote hardly seems to be an ideal solution. Moreover, there is no longer any remaining incentive for me or any other programmer to write menus, since they couldn't possibly be placed in section D. Similarly, the text decompressor and reader would not be credited in this way. This Letter From Andrew Collier is an extremely large and complex project; I'm not sure you appreciate the difficulties involved with this algorithm, which is more efficient with memory but very much more complicated than the one you are using at the moment; a project which I would stress that I am not prepared to continue just for the sheer fun of it. There are much easier things I could be doing instead. In one important sense, anybody who sends material to Fred is doing the editors, and the readers, a great favour and I feel you are neglecting this in cutting the payment. On the other hand, the idea of a lottery is just as bad for both the contributors and the magazine. If the programmer is absolutely determined to get the cash prize, he will, in this case, churn out mountains of rubbish, so as to get his name into the hat the maximum possible number of times. You may get more contributions, but of lower and lower quality up to the point at which the magazine is not worth the disk it is saved on. I would not like to see that happen, and I am sure that neither you nor your readers would like to see it either. Letter From Andrew Collier I shall leave you with this point to null over: it surely is no coincidence that the quality of FRED rose dramatically immediately when payment was introduced. If your new scheme continues then I would not be surprised to see the equal and opposite reaction. I doubt that I am on my own, and I would ask you to reconsider this decision (which was taken before actually asking any of your readers if a price rise would be acceptable) before any permanent damage is done to Fred magazine or to the Sam market which it helps to advertise and sustain. If your mind is totally and absolutely made up against keeping a sensible and fair system which has already served you very well for years, then perhaps you could instead consider providing software in the form of n free issues of Fred or special vouchers for money off Fred and Revelation (and Phoenix) titles for contributions which did not reach the dizzy heights of "star" status. Possibly a sliding scale of between £5 and £10 (or more if the product is absolutely outstanding) could be in order; but the situation no credit, no appreciation, not even Letter From Andrew Collier any thanks, for the vast majority of contributors, should not be your preferred solution. I mean, even Your Sinclair sent you a metal exclusive pin badge and a signed congratulations note from the editor, and that was just for a screen wipe routine (which incidentally, was used in the F.L.M. demo on issue 52 without proper mention or credit. I don't know if it is in the game proper; I haven't bought it and I can't admit to really being very interested in Football Manager games; but you can check I wrote the routine by looking in YS issue 87 (March 93) page 31. Note Craig's error - I know I said "above Ramtop" in my letter because I still have a copy of it. I did tell him my full name, too.) Thankyou for reading, I hope my points fall on sympathetic ears. Best wishes, Andrew Collier CA Reply to Andrew Collier Many thanks for your letter Andrew. It's helpful to receive feedback, positive and negative. Both Colin and I understand that this news would be a shock to everyone and really did prolong the decision, but something had to be done. Although FRED magazine is non profit making, it simply can't continue if it makes a loss. I know a couple of people have said that they would not mind price rises, but if we were to consider this, we really would like a lot more people saying they wouldn't mind. I don't doubt you're alone, but we'd need more definite responses. On the point about public domain. Public domain is not donated material that receives no payment, it is where the programmer lets his software be distributed for little or no charge. Either way, FRED will not publish anything which has already been released. However, as many other programmers have done, they are free to distribute it AFTER is has been on FRED. CA Reply to Andrew Collier I apologise for the positioning of the plea and the news. Unfortunately, I can't write an editorial in one go, and end up fitting bits together over time. I hope that this did not irritate or upset any readers. Similarly, the point about not paying the same bunch of programmers, was merely to tell less regular (I can't call them irregular, that could be taken the wrong way) programmers that just because they can't program in machine code, doesn't mean that their contribution won't be considered for the best program. My choice would be decided by a mixture of the quality AND the time spent. Although my vote may seem unfair, I do try and be as unbiased as possible. I make sure at least two other SAM owners agree, but anyway, in the end, someone has to make the final decision - even whether or not an item will even get onto FRED! Also, I can see the logic in people sending lots of contributions, but the fact of the matter is that they simply wouldn't be included if they weren't up to an acceptable CA Reply to Andrew Collier standard. If all we were sent was rubbish, all you'd get would be an editorial and demos of 10 FRED games! There is absolutely no way that we would let the quality of FRED drop to a standard where people were not getting value for money. Despite this, your point is a very good one. I can completely understand this view and am positive you will not be alone. Thanks again for taking the time to write the letter. If other FRED readers/contributors feel the same way then perhaps we'll re-think. Letter from Stewart Skardon Argh!!! (Screams of a mad nature), What have you done to me, a once normal and sane person? I am completely mad now. First Lemmings, and now Santa Goes Psycho 2! I am now a bald raving loony, not the peaceful and tranquil Stewart that I used to be. A few questions, as I know that you will probably appreciate the opportunity to fill up as much space as possible in the letters section. (Come on all you other FRED readers! Get writing!) 1) Who did the menu on FRED 52? Just to say, I thought the snow was a very nice touch! 2) Correct me if I am mistaken, but did you say that you own an Archimedes? If you do, so do I! I've got a humble little A3010 (ARM 250, RISC OS 3 with 2 meg). If I am not mistaken, what model do you own? How about swapping programs? If I don't say so myself, I am pretty good at programming the Arc, and can program in the WIMP environment. Letter From Stewart Skardon I think that the post office have done it again! I sent my poor innocent but ill Speccy +3 to be repaired and I'm still waiting for it to be returned! At least this sort of thing goes to show that the post office obviously have good taste in computers! There may be a few "bits" winging their way to you soon! Watch out! A couple of MODs perhaps? A few programs and screens, who knows? Who cares? That's if the Post office don't nick them first! Congratulations on an excellent issue 52, keep it up, or else! Best Wishes, Stewart Skardon CA Reply to Stewart Skardon Hello again. Deary me, it looks as if the "Oh, I'm turning mad" disease is spreading across the country. That must be at least 8 people with it now - myself (I'm proud to say) included. Mind you, ON!ML, Impatience and TTLL certainly isn't the cure. You must love being mad. Issue 52's menu? Why, that was done by another of us nutters, Graham Goring. I can't remember whose idea it was to have the snow, but I did the text with the snow resting on it and he did all the rest. He cheated though - I don't know if anyone noticed, but the snow effect was done using Gamesmaster! Yes, I indeed own an Archimedes. It took a whole summer holiday of night-shifts at our local fruit packers to pay for it, but I did it. I had the sense to buy an Arc instead of one of those P.C. things lots of people buy so they can play Doom. Due to the amount of hours I worked, I was able to buy an A5000 with ARM 3, RISC OS 3.11 and 2 meg. Don't feel inferior though. Ha ha ha. I know that Andrew Hodgekinson also owns one, and I'm CA Reply to Stewart Skardon positive other SAM owners either own one or have access to one. If I haven't already got in touch, it's because I'm lazy. Good to hear the post office is playing up again. Quick. Whip those "bits" in the post now. The sooner the better, and the more stuff I get, the better FRED will be. Thanks for the letter, and good luck with the new software. Letter From Frank Harrop Dear Colin, In your editorial in FRED 53, you were asking for subscribers to put forward ideas and programs for a variety of interests. But what about hardware projects? I am sure both of you were surprised at the interest aroused for the EDDAC unit, and I can suggest another project that could also follow suit. I am the fortunate owner of a SAMBUS, and the timer I consider a most valuable and useful tool. Not only is it used to provide timing pulses for the amateur radio programs devised by Ian Spencer (author of Specmaker and PC_Suite), but it automatically inserts date and time on your directory files whenever they are saved, so it is easy to check the sequence. In addition, you need it to insert date and time into word processors such as The Secretary and Outwrite. Unfortunately, the SAMBUS is no longer advertised by West Coast Computers, and apparently no longer being manufactured because Letter From Frank Harrop the timer chip used in the original is a rather obscure integrated circuit not readily available. I feel this is a feeble excuse for, as other computers provide timing functions, there must be some alternative timer chips that are available, even from Maplins. But it would mean a re-design of the associated circuitry. With the unfortunate prolonged illness of the manufacturer of the SAM, it would mean that one of our other experts, for example Stefan Drissen, might be in a position to design such a unit. In fact it could be limited to just a simple clock interface, used with a two-face to provide a through connection, or a complete board with input and output connectors, or perhaps just one extra socket. There is of course the necessity of proving the likely demand for such an interface, and sufficient SAM owners would need to come forward to justify someone tackling even the design. Even then there is the question of assembly, as I do not think that it would be feasible to try a veroboard type unit. This for home constructors would mean that a prototype printed circuit Letter From Frank Harrop board is almost essential, to ensure a reproducible product, for simple assembly and avoid most connection mistakes. Again that would need a professional design, and sufficient demand to justify a short production run. Does any subscriber have the facility of a PCB design program and would be willing to produce a design if a technical circuit is provided, and anyone able to produce a one-off prototype for testing? This is how a specialist interface for the old Spectrum Plus was developed when 20 members of a group gave a commitment to purchase the PCB. It could be that there are still numbers of the original SAMBUS printed circuit boards available, and that only the clock section is the problem. Whether an expert could modify the original artwork/circuit boards to take an alternative integrated circuit is another way of looking at the problem. Either way - the question remains, is there sufficient demand for a timer interface for the matter to be taken further? I am Letter From Frank Harrop no electronic expert in relation to current integrated circuitry, but it would be interesting to know whether those SAM owners with expert knowledge, either in this country or in Europe, have any thoughts on this matter, or are in a position to advise? Perhaps FRED subscribers will let you have their views. Sincerely, Frank Harrop CA Reply to Frank Harrop Many thanks for the letter. Indeed, hardware is something we're all interested in. The response for people wanting the EDDAC MOD player was very surprising, which just goes to show that people really do want to improve their SAMs. The idea also sounds very promising. I don't know anything about electronics (except what I was taught in Physics - ie. nothing!), but I found myself agreeing with you all the time. Colin is going to pass the idea onto West Coast Computers. In the meantime, I'm sure you'll find Steve Taylor's extra clock commands very useful. And to all other readers, if you have any opinion on this or any similar subject, please write in. Letter From George Robson Dear Colin, As one of your "passed my sell by date" subscribers, I must congratulate you on the high standard that is being kept up on "Fred". I got involved with computers when I received a Spectrum 16K as a retirement present in 1983, and then went on through all the variations ending up with a notorious +3. The next step was of course to get a Sam, and I was one of the early customers when it appeared. I am no expert on the machine, but spend many happy hours pottering about on the Sam, and although some of the items on Fred are rather beyond my limited knowledge, I get a great deal of pleasure from the ones I can cope with. I especially like the music items, which I transfer on to separate discs to collect them together, both the "E-tunes" and the "Mod" programs. Similarly with the screens, and I now have some 16 discs full of screens collected from many sources. I was overjoyed after purchasing SAMpaint to discover the many things that could be done with it, especially as a few years back I added a Star LC200 colour printer to my set up, and although it is somewhat dated now, it still produces nice Letter From George Robson coloured printouts from SAMpaint, as well as being used with Outwrite2 as a word processor. I was most interested in the "Protection" system used on SAMpaint, using the numbers of page, line and word of the manual. What I wondered was it possible for you to give me a program listing, (hopefully in Basic), to be able to use another book or such like in the same way? My second point is to ask if you were able to provide titles for screens you have on Fred each month? Some of course are obvious, but others have me puzzled, and I would be delighted to know what they are. Thanking you in anticipation, keep up the good work, from an old codger of 73, Yours sincerely, George Robson CA Reply to George Robson Old codger?!? At only 73?!? Come on George. You're still a spritely young lad as far as I'm concerned. Keep up the exercise and you'll probably be fit enough for the next olympic pole-vaulting team! Much as I understand how useful the protection system on SAMpaint would be to us all, it would kind of defeat the purpose of the protection if we gave it away! Sorry. Most of the screens I receive do have titles, and I would be only too pleased to tell you what they're called. If you're stuck on any from my period (51-53) I'll be able to help you out. If you want to know any others, I may be able to help. Many thanks for the letter, and may you get lots more enjoyment from FRED while I'm still about. Letter From Phil Glover Dear Colin, Congratulations on getting FRED 52 to me in time for Christmas. I was very pleased with the variety and content of the disk, especially for the contributions by Matt Round. His SANTA GOES PSYCHO 2 game was superb, and should be used as an example of how good GAMES MASTER can be in the right hands. If he writes SGP 3 for next Christmas, with a few extra bits, it may be worth releasing it as a stand alone budget game, as SGP 2 is almost too good to be given away on a magazine. I'm not complaining, but it'd be nice to think that programmers can earn a few quid from their work, where possible. I'm constantly pleased with some of the software that's published on disc magazines, as well as some of the commercial stuff, as SAM programming seems to be done by keen writers in their own spare time, rather than as a full-time paid job. It makes you wonder just how far SAM's limits could be pushed if teams of paid programmers were set about such work, as they did on the Spectrum just a few years back. Letter From Phil Glover Everyone who writes SAM programs, whether for magazines, PD or commercial material, is helping strengthen SAM and adding to the software base. If only SAM had been launched with half the software available, it may have got off to a better start. Briefly returning to the multi-talented Matt Round (grovelling flattery), I was also impressed with his secret diary program. Could Matt possibly alter it to handle ordinary text files, rather than diary entries? I'm sure many of us have information, such as credit card numbers, etc. that could benefit from such protection. Failing that, I could just choose one particular date within the diary to file such material. I'm glad to see that you have decided to re-release THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO SAM BASIC. However, I'd recommend that some clever person could edit it and possibly re-write some bits as the original is still written as though it's part of a magazine, and could be tidied up a bit. Also, could an extra section be added for those of us with MasterBASIC and MasterDOS? The Letter From Phil Glover original version isn't in 'normal' word-processor file format, and it'd be good if it could be published in such a form so the user could edit the text and add comments as they wished, prior to printing it out. Perhaps owners of the disk may then send in extra notes and advice to FRED to share with others, so that the guide could be expanded and added to, for the benefit of all involved with it. This could then lead to the guide becoming the most thorough work on SAM BASIC available, and capable of future improvements if people wish to add to it. I hope that FRED will continue at the usual high standard during 1995. I'm sure that we shall continue to see more SAM software and hardware being developed for us to enjoy. I'm still happy with my SAM, and my impressions of PC computers are very unfavourable. In my design studio at work, I use one main PC and my assistant uses a slower machine. Both are 486 types, but mine has a math coprocessor. The first 'slow' PC self-destructed a few months back, destroying the hard drive's contents and knackering up two or three board thingys. The Letter From Phil Glover replacement for that machine has now also committed suicide, we think. It was still under warranty, and we were about to return it, only to find that the company involved has gone bust! Touch wood, neither of my two SAMs have gone wrong, and I won't even think about buying a PC unless it's a model that's well-made as SAM. The PC repairman finds it odd that I'm content with using my SAMs and Spectrum 128, but he also admits they're superbly designed and seem to stand the test of time better than many current PCs. All the very best, Phil Glover CA Reply to Phil Glover Glad you liked FRED 52. Well Matt, there's yet another challenge for you. All you Matt Round fans should be looking out for TnT, especially after the demo on this FRED. It's being delayed slightly due to technical hitches (bugs), but keep watching. It will be available from Revelation in the near future. I often think, "if only..." when it comes to the SAM, and often curse at the number of near misses it has had. However, we're a tough little bunch of cult computer addicts, and we'll keep it going to the bitter end. Although a sudden late run of luck would be nice. I don't really know what to say about the SAM BASIC guide. I can never get through to Colin, but he has read your letter and is probably this moment considering your ideas. Yes, you can never trust a PC. All they're good for is, erm, well,er, something, probably. CA Review of Sophistry After many promises of dozens of Spectrum classics being converted to the SAM, finally Revelation have gone all the way and released Sophistry. To top it off, they've managed to get our favourite Stefan Drissen to program it, so you can expect a well written program immediately. I must admit that I've never played this game on the Spectrum, which is strange because I'm an old Speccy owner and have played most of the games of this age. However, this means in effect that it's as good as a new SAM game for me, which is just as pleasing as seeing one of your favourite games converted. The game probably comes in a box, but it'd cost Colin too much to post, so excuse me for that. However, the insert (ahem) is comprehensive enough to get you started before you learn on your own. Two pages is perfect for a set of instructions to a game if you ask me. I can't stand it when I can be bothered to read instructions and it was completely obvious anyway. This blue bit of paper basically tells you the story and gives you the controls you'll need to play. The story is this. Sophistry (even Revelation admit to not knowing why it's called Sophistry) takes place in a complex of 21 levels which are linked by 3D game boards. You only currently have 20% access to the whole structure, and you must collect the 64 keys to open the rest of the place up. You can collect keys by bouncing on them or you can buy them using the credits that you make during the game. But what does it look like? On booting, you're shown the loading screen which you should all immediately recognise as Robert Van Der Veeke's work. As usual, it's in his 'MANGA' type of style, very colourful and, I think, one of his better works. And as soon as that disappears, on comes Craig Turberfield's music, which is quite superb. I think there are lots of different in-game tunes, and the menu tune, so you won't get bored with repetition. There are five icons at the top of the screen that you can choose from, and basically let you play and control the whole game. They consist of PLAY - PAUSE - INSTRUCTIONS - MAP - CONTROLS. The instructions are mainly used for telling you what the different challenges are and how to cope with them. The controls allow you to change keys, load and save games, exchange credits for numerous things or restart. You control a red and yellow bouncy thing that jumps about like a grasshopper. You play on a 3D board split up into blocks (rather like a chess board). Your job is to jump in one of four directions to the next block and collect the rings. There are a number of things that make this difficult, from blocks that you cannot go back onto until you've collected a ring, to time limits, to a chain of low blocks you can't jump onto that follows you! The idea of each board is basically to collect points, rings and mainly, to escape. The exits only appear after you gain so many points, and having the extra obstacles makes it a challenging game. Seekers are set off by mystery blocks or by entering certain boards, and these kill you upon touch. It's a game which I find very addictive. To be honest, the game is quite simple - although Robert has done well with the limited amount of graphics he could do. There isn't a lot of variation, but there are a number of challenges and all of them are fun and easy enough to do - if you have patience. When you fail to complete a board, you don't get angry with the game like you would in a shoot-em-up, instead you kick yourself, because you know that you shouldn't have done what you did. Although it is a limited game, it's very, very playable and addictive and at £9.95, it really is a bargain. And for you lovers of the Spectrum version, you can play that by entering a line before you load the game! Graphics : 72% Music : 92% Gameplay : 68% Lastability : 90% OVERALL : 80% From Revelation Software Programmed by Stefan Drissen
Rachel (ctd.)
+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Hipposoft Presents: | | | | An Epic Tale of For Fredatives | | an Accident, A "Rachel" /Fred Magazine | | Man And His Cows Hipposoft 1992 | | | | Or, "The Forgotten Enemy" | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ LAST TIME... Having complained to Universal Exterminators about having his castle doors blown off, a man requested to see The Boss of Universal Exterminators... BIG mistake, for the cows saw the boss as their Worst IMaginable Person and suffered from Extremely Acute Terror Syndrome, EATS. Hence they teleported elsewhere as a form of self-protection. The man didn't notice this, and was waiting for an explanation of the exterminator's actions. He was wrong, if you remember; the world exploded... ...and was replaced by a holographic projection that told the man just who it was that had made the mistake. "Ah," he said. "My fault." "Correct," said the Boss, vanishing. "So I did go to the right place," said the Dark, Shadowy figure. "Thought I'd read the wrong number or something. Never could get the hang of that, what-d'y-callit.." "Mooo," interjected Rachel, helpfully. "Writing, yes, that's it." "But there are no house numbers on castles!" "See what I mean?" The Spacerat groaned, and reached for a paper bag. The man looked around him. "I've only got four cows!" he shouted. "I did try to tell you." "Where did they go?" "Pop!" said Rachel. "Oh no! We'll never find them!" "Mooo," agreed Rachel, mournfully. "I can help," said the Dark, Shadowy Figure. "I know a man who owns sheep. Lots of sheep. He hires them out, cheap. You could get them to build a spaceship." "But that's impossible!" "No, it's building a Work Field Support-O-Matic that's impossible." The work field is one of the most commonly experienced but least acknowledged phenomena in the Universe. Every living being actually generates a work field. This enables them to get on with jobs they'd never do outside of the field. The problem is, the work field is unstable. When one person sits, say, in a library, on their own, they can get enormous amounts of work done. But if about six or more people sit in the immediate vicinity, the combining of the work fields creates an area of field so concentrated it collapses, forming Antiwork. At this point, none of the people can do any proper work, because the antiwork field is having the opposite effect to a work field and, being inexplicably stronger than it, is spreading. Consequently everyone in the library will do very little. Of course, Antiwork fields are highly localised phenomena, and even though they might spread out to most of the library, there will be a corner where one or two people sit in their own little work fields getting loads done, much to the annoyance of the other people. VERY occasionally, the antiwork field builds up to a level at which it itself collapses, the resultant field usually collapsing several times to reach something resembling stability, until, by a complex and convoluted system of double-negatives, a strong work-field may be regenerated. The basis of the Work Field Generator is to collapse fields internally, only leaking out work-fields, which it can stop from collapsing. Hence the popular name, Work Field Support-O-Matic. Cows and sheep rank in the top-ten chart of "Strongest Work Field Producers," in fact their work fields are already so strong they collapse on generation. Thus sheep and cows exist in a separate, serene and gentle world of their own, which is misinterpreted my all major sentient life-forms to be caused by a lack of intelligence. In fact, cows and sheep are hyper-intelligent super-quasibeings. If anyone could actually build a Work Field Support-O-Matic (WoFiSOM) and use it to collapse the cow/sheep antiwork field, they would have some very useful super-quasibeings on their hands, and would undoubtedly become sickeningly rich in an equally (if not more) sickeningly short time. "Lemmings!" shouted the Spacerat enthusiastically. It was holding a playing card in its hand. The Spacerat noticed there was no-one else playing cards, and became embarrassed. The cows, man, and Dark Shadowy Figure were having a raging argument. "It can be done!" "No it can't!" The man began to hop again. "Look, I've told you! Just get a WIMP field collector, invert the output and send it to the component pile!" "And how do you propose to do that?" "Swap the upper atomic matrix with the lower atomic matrix, whilst rotating the action of gravity through Pi radians such that the unit undergoes permanent structural inversion in the common three dimensional plane!" "Turn it upside down." Rachel groaned, and flopped to the floor. "Mooo," she complained, stomachs rumbling uneasily. The other cows did the same thing, and were ignored. "You just HAVE to make everything sound stupid, don't you." "No, I leave you to do that." "Well let me tell you, I've inverted more WIMP field collectors than you've had hot dinners!" "And I've experienced more Antiwork field implosions than you've had packed lunches!" "You're a banana, you know that, don't you!" "Well at least I move!" "So do I!" "No you don't, you IMPLY it. You can't even move properly!" Rachel rolled over sideways, into the other three cows, that were doing the same thing. They'd all been through a lot, what with The Boss and now this hassle about dinner (there wasn't any,) and right now there was so strong a WIMP field surrounding them that when they bumped together bits of it started to crystallise out of the air and tinkle to the ground, in the form of small, sky-blue trigonal biprisms. A delocalised antiwork field began to drift from the arguing figures towards them.. the field began to intensify with the cows' hunger, the piles of crystals grew, and reality began to crumble.. the fields drew closer and closer, distorting space and time themselves.... "Carnivore!" "Three-dimensional spacially restricted Earth-being!" "Oh that's it, technical insults is it? Well let me ask you then, go on, answer this - " he glanced at the cows, " - WHAT'S HAPPENING TO MY COWS?!" FFFffffffssssss... ssshhhHHhhHHHHhhULP!.. FFFFffft - PPOOWW!!! And lo, there was light; and whilst spirit remained, reality shattered, and inverted; and the light imploded, sprouting darkness... and then there was oblivion.... ...and the AntiWIMP field existed, for a millisecond; it twisted amongst the shattered remnants of reality, mingled with a twenty-fifth collapse Work Field, creating the impossible... Creating that which could not be created... Creating the WoFiSOM. +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Hipposoft Presents: | | | | An Epic Tale of For Fredatives | | an Accident, A "Rachel" /Fred Magasine | | Man And His Cows Hipposoft 1992 | | | | Or, "The Forgotten Enemy" | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ LAST TIME... The Boss of "Universal Exterminators" had just shown the man that the confusion over the destruction of his castle's doors was his fault. Following this through a bizarre and exceedingly unlikely chain of events which surprisingly few people followed successfully, in which the Spacerat played cards and the cows wanted to be Taken Away From All That, a blinding flash of light (which was a rather naff visible manifestation of vast unimaginable forces at work) created the only Work Field Support-O-Matic (WoFiSOM) in existence... - Read on... "Wow," said Rachel. ---- Half an hour later, when the coloured spots had died away from the man's eyes, and the Dark Shadowy Figure had reformed after being dispersed by the flash, the group stood in a circle around a small, grey box. It was about three inches square, and had four buttons on the top. One was black, and had "ON/OFF" written above it; the second was green, and had "WORK FIELD RELEASE" written on it; the third was blue, and had "WORK FIELD DISPERSE" on it. The fourth, was the traditional round, red button, with no label. "That'll be the Antiwork/Work merger system," said Rachel. "No-one knows what happens if you place a Work field in the same space as an Antiwork field." There then followed a short debate about this, which lasted for five minutes. When the matter was settled, (no-one was to touch the button - not that anyone would have thought about it before this was decided) the man suddenly realised that Rachel was speaking to him, along with the rest of the cows. Then he realised that the WoFiSOM was switched to "ON", and suddenly knew what was happening. "Hey, like mellow out!" he said, not entirely sure why he said it, since he didn't know what it meant anyway. "Awesome!" Rachel gave him a surprised glance and examined the WoFiSOM a bit more. It had a small, black dial, set in a hole in the base, with the words, "WORK FIELD EMERGENCY COLLAPSE:SUPPORT RATIO" stencilled on it. You'd have thought they could have got some decent engraving done rather than a stencil - and, it appeared, a purple felt-tip pen - whoever "they" were, but that was reality collapse for you. Totally unreliable. Hmph. "By the way," said Rachel, an hour later. "I've just remembered. You're called Diggy, aren't you?" The man spat out the cup of tea he'd just got fifteen Caddis flies to make for him, using the WoFiSOM. The cup tasted awful. "Shhhhh!" - but it was too late, the giggles were drowning out his protests and denials already. High above, a Spacerat - still with a bad headache from the collapse of reality, that time wave had sent it fifteen weeks into the air - sniggered to itself. "I was wondering," admitted the Dark, Shadowy Figure when everyone had recovered. "Now I know why you never mentioned it." "Well I wouldn't have let anyone know, but for this Blasted Bovine Botheration!" Rachel mooed loudly and stomped off to eat some grass, in a temper. The other cows followed. "Well we may has well get on with it, hadn't we?" stated Diggy, rattily. (Not that he knew quite how a rat would have said that, it just seemed sort of ratty.) "Lets turn up that WoFiSOM, point it at the cows and build ourselves a space ship! We'll find the others in no time! We can even build a Bovine Detect-O-Matic! There'll be no stopping us! Wow..." "Er, yes..." said the Dark, Shadowy figure, and was interrupted. ---- "Hello," said Florence, who was in the wrong place. "Have you seen Dougal anywhere?" "Time for bed!" said Zebedee. "I blame the signposting myself." "Aye," said Mr. McHenry, scottishly. "Au reviour," said Dougal, in French. Rachel watched the party pass by her with the serenity and peace of a cow that's only just found some grass to eat, has survived a collapse of reality and is currently trying to stop itself from flying due to a powerful Work Field that is enveloping it. "Hey, like play it cool, sister," said Dylan. Rachel fainted, and began to fall over... "Well that was different," said the Dark Shadowy Figure. "It's not.. " - THUMP (...and fell over...) - ".. often you see that sort of thing, is it?" "No," said Diggy. He looked at the cows clustering around the lumpy form of Rachel, and picked up the WoFiSOM. He'd call it Harold. It was a good name. He'd always wanted to be called Harold. "Let's see what you can do," he said to it. "You'd be surprised," said Harold "And you're about to find out..." -+* To Be Continued! *+-