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Text File
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1987-04-22
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21KB
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370 lines
KEEFY'S BIT
***********
Well, hello once again, and welcome to the crissy issue of STOSSER. Ah
yes, Christmas ..... the time of peace and love all over the world.
Mistletoe, holly, prezzies and best of all parties!. (not that i've been
invited to any that is (anyone got a spare hanky?). Anyway, before i go
nattering on any further, i suppose it would only be right to wish
everyone of you out there, yes all of you!, a merry christmas and a happy
new year (this may be academic to some of you as you probably got your
copy after crissy).
First off, somebody out there should have had an excellent start to their
christmas break, namely:
MARTIN ANDERSON of LIVERPOOL
WHY?. Because he was the winner of our questionaire competition and
should now be the proud owner of some new games for his beloved ST.
Congratulations Martin, hope you like 'em.
In total, we received 18 completed questionaires, which on reflection is
a pretty good response, when you consider the dwindling number of ST
users. So many thanks to all of you for your opinions, they have been
very helpful. If you wrote to us, you will find your name below in the
roll call.
I suppose that now you want us to tell you what our little survey told
us. Well i'm not going to!......okay okay......here goes. The first
thing that was apparent, was that virtually none of you liked the jokes
very much at all, and finished bottom on virually everyones list. The
average mark for that section was only around 3or4, and several times
comments were added at the bottom of the questionaire asking for it to be
scrapped. Your wish is our command, the jokes have now been removed,
never to return again. boo hoo!.
The contacts section seemed to be fairly popular with scores averaging
around 7-8, the same was said of martins problem page with scores around
the 8-9 mark in almost everyones opinion, along with a good few 10's. So
keep those problems coming in (to martin, not me!), his address is around
in the zine somewhere.
The letters page seemed to be very popular too, with scores in the 7's
and 8's each time, trouble is, we're not getting enough intersting
letters to make it viable (note it's absence this issue). For my mind a
scribbled note saying "Please send me the next issue of STOSSER", can't
be printed can it. So if you're going to write to us, why not spend a
few more minutes jotting down your opinions of the zine, what you like
and what you don't like, give us all something to think about eh?. One
big letter a month hardly makes a letters page eh?.
Most of you seemed to think the reviews were a little bit harsh
sometimes. Erm........ think i'll stick my hand up and say i was
probably the biggest culprit. I know that most of these programs are
written for the fun and enjoyment of it, so if you were offended by a
review of a program you've written, then sorry. Having said that, i do
think that we wouldn't be doing things properly if we just said every game
was good regardless. We'd be wrong if we didn't point out bugs, faults
or pitfalls or whatever. If you went out and bought a copy of a game
because we said it was good, you'd be pretty miffed if it was crap
wouldn't you.
By far the most popular parts of the zine were the giveaways and the
basic tutorial, with them getting full marks from virtually everyone. It
seems a lot of beginners read the zine and find these parts helpful in
their learning process.
The Inside Stos articles from dion guy were also popular, unfortunately i
don't think we'll be seeing any more of them as they were taken from the
now defunct STOS magazine. Still, it was good while it lasted eh?. If
any of you out there have any of the articles that we haven't yet
included in STOSSER, can you let us have them so we can share them with
the STOS using world?.
The meaning of STOS was not very popular, most of the time getting around
3 marks and occaisionally nothing, and as requested by you, has now been
dropped. I for one won't miss it, as it seemed that i was the only one
doing it anyway.
On the other hand the beginners guide to computing and the adverts fared
quite well, averaging about 7. Icidentally, we'd like to hear from you
if you've actually benefitted from either placing an ad or replying to an
ad. Have you found what you were looking for because of us. If so let
us know. Also, don't forget, the adverts page is there for your benefit,
if you've just finished writing a new program and want to spread the word
the adverts page is an ideal place to start, it's free and as long as the
program is STOS written you'll be welcome to advertise it with us.
Although we would like a copy of the program for review purposes.
Last, but by no means least, both the adventure and the stos 3d tutorials
were liked by most of you. Gaining around 8 marks across the board.
Unfortunately, the adventure tutorial finished last month, but this
months collection of tutorials should definately keep you all happily
poking away at your keyboards for a while, and don't forget, if you've
been following the adventure tutorial, you should have learnt enough by
now to have a go at entering the competition organized by deano to win
loads of goodies, he's extended the closing date so there's no excuse now.
For those of you who added comments onto the end of your questionaires,
you will probably have noticed that several of them have already been
acted on. The jokes and meaning of stos for instance. The story also
ended last month, by popular request. You asked for a search option and
a change colours option in the doc reader, you got it!. So if you have
any other comments, observations or ideas, then don't hesitate to contact
us, we're always prepared to listen.
Incidentally, in a future issue of STOSSER, we're looking to have rogues
gallery of STOSSERS, so if you have a scanner we'd like a mug-shot. If
you haven't got one then simply send us a passport sized photo of
yourself. I promise to do my best to return them all (although i can't
bank on the p.o.). You never know you may see your face in STOSSER soon.
This all depends on the response from you guys.
This month we have a new competition for you, the prize this time being
another four top quality ST titles. But this time, there's also a
second prize of 10 disks of p.d. It's another questionaire for you to
fill in, but this time we want to find out a bit about you rather than
what you think of us. You find it under the name of HOO R YOO. So have
a look at it and give it a go, you never know you might win.
Deano's competition also continues this month, this was due to end this
month, but he received several letters from people asking him to extend
the closing date, so therfore you now have another 6 months to get your
entries to him. Have a look, you'll find it under the name DEANOS COMPY.
The prize is well worth winning.
Right, i think that's enough of competitions for now, sometimes i
think we're too good to you. What else was there?......
Ah yes, you may remember that last month we carried a review of the
excellent grandad 2. However, what we forgot to mention, was that
Caledonia PDL are the official distributors of the program, for more
information contact Jake Bain on (0463) 225736.
Also, last month we asked you lot out there whether there was any truth
to the rumour than STEN had finished, loads of you rang to tell us that
as far as you knew they had stopped doing it. Most of you said something
about Dave Mooney leaving the ST for the PC. Because of the sheer
ammount of you who rang with exactly the same thoughts, i think we can
only assume that STEN is dead for now. For all our sakes, lets hope
someone resurrects it.
It's not all bad news though, those of you who read the major ST mags may
have noticed the reviews of STOSSER in both ST Format and ST review. 78%
in format and 4 stars out of 5 in review. Not bad in terms of score if
you ask me, although i must admit i didn't agree with all their comments.
We also had a rather good mention in micro mart a few weeks ago, so many
thanks to Mike at Goodmans International for submitting it for review for
us. Thanks also to any other libraries who may have submitted STOSSER to
any of the mags.
We're starting to get quite a bit of feedback now, but it still seems
like a hard core of around 20 people who are contributing to the zines
welfare. We KNOW there are more of you out there than that, so by way of
encourageing you to do articles for us we've come up with a little
incentive for you. If you send in an article for the first time, we
will send you a disk packed full of about 100 useful STOS routines for
you to play with, if we use the article that is. None of them have been
given away with STOSSER before so why not give it a go. This dosen't
apply to the fantastic people who already contribute, purely to those of
you contributing for the first time.
Now i have an appeal to make, we are now at issue 9, and so far we've
heard virtually nothing from the female st world (apart from julie worden
and lynn pratt). So come on girls, there must be at least a few of you
out there and we want to hear from you. Also, as of yet we've not heard
an awful lot from st users outside the uk. We've had people from
Germany, Poland, France and Belgium. But what about America and
Australia?, has STOSSER reached that far yet?. If so get in touch, we'd
love to hear from you. South america?, Asia?, Africa?, Russia?,
Canada?, wherever you are, talk to us. Also, i'd be very intersted to
hear details of Atari ST user groups all over the world, what do they
do?, when do they meet?. Any info on that would be appreciated as we'd
like to compile a list of user groups for a future issue. This sort of
thing needs our support so let us know about it. In fact news of any
type which would be intersting to STOS and ST users would be great.
We've heard news recently of a new club which has recently started for
the more mature ST user. Tactfully entitled
THE ATARI WRINKLIES CLUB
You can find out more about it by contacting:
Jim Hornby
Atari Wrinklies Club
60 Crumpsall St
Abbey Wood
London
SE2 OLR
Remember to mention STOSSER if you do get in touch!.
A bit of natter now i think, as if i haven't wibbled on enough. I had to
laugh the other day when i was browsing through our local computer shop.
All over the counter were these display cases, containing loads of disks
in little plastic boxes, upon closer examination i noticed that these
disks were actually public domain programs packaged with a nice little
clear case, and printed insert showing what the game was like and all
that. Then i noticed the price £4.50. Forgive me if i'm wrong, but i
always thought that the whole concept between the idea of pd was to avoid
all the things like fancy packaging etc... I always thought P.D was
supposed to be free?... I suppose a lot of people have accused a lot of
P.D. libraries of just being in it for a quick buck, but this one really
took the biscuit. I just wonder how many of the authors of the programs
knew their programs were being marketed in this way. (just in case you
were wondering, yes, they were DEFINATELY P.D. not licensware or
shareware or anything else P.D.). Fortunately, all the programs i saw
were for the amiga and pc. Has anyone seen programs for the ST on sale
in a similar way. I was going to ask a few questions in the shop but
unfortunately i got kicked out. Just because i asked him if i could swap
one of my disks for one of his so-called P.D. titles. Mind you i haven't
got a pc or amiga so i don't know why i asked in the first place.
Right before we go into the details of what text files we've got for you
this month. We'd like to say a special thank-you to Colin Pratt for his
help with some of the graphics for this issue. Cheers mate!.
So what have we got then?, well, if you thought last month was a cracker,
then you're going to love this one. Articles covering almost every
aspect of STOS programming, from the very beginning to the very
experienced. A couple of new names too, and hopefully we'll be seeing
them quite often.
Lets get on with it shall we?...First off, the STOS tutorial by William
Morrisson continues this month, with info on re-sizing pictures,
unsquashing files and more. William also gives us the low down on
TOS 2.06 and there's an article about disk boxes which definately strikes
a chord with me, and will no doubt with many of you too.
Martin Cubitt solves some more of your STOS problems, whilst still
managing to take the time out to continue his informative series on how
to write STOS extensions, along with a comparison test between two of the
major atari glossy mags.
The first new name in this issue is that of Bob Goodfellow, who came up
with some excellent articles covering the stos tracker extension, loading
and displaying text, the complete solution to the looping tracker
problem, and also the first part in the series of CUSTOMISING STOS, which
hopefully will help you to make your stos programs look that little bit
better.
Deano gives all you STOSSERS struggling with the Missing Link extension
from top notch, with part one of his brand spanking new missing link
tutorial starting this month, and Matthew Green keeps all you 3Ders happy
with his monthly fix of the 3d tutorial.
Fans of Colin Pratt's indomitable sense of humour will be pleased to see
some more of his superb wit in two more files written especially for
STOSSER, The STOSSER panto, and XMAS POEM. Jimbo joins in the humourous
festivities with the second part of english as she is spoke.
Brian Crossland tells us all we'll ever need to know about ascii, the
beginners guide to computing continues, and if you're stuck for ideas
for your next program then this month sees the start of what'll hopefully
be a new part of stosser called ideas. This months suggestions come
from Tony Greenwood (the man himself), but we'd like to see a few ideas
from you lot soon.
Scott King comments on our review of his video titler a few issues ago,
and once again we have two competetions for you to try. There's Deano's
adventure creator competetion now with a new extended closing date, along
with a brand new STOSSER questionaire competition. This time we want to
know about you, instead of what you think of us. Both competetions have
prizes worth winning so have a look at them and give them a go, you'll
never win if you don't try will you?.
As always there's the reviews, contacts and adverts section for you to
browse over, along with the start of a new message section. We also felt
the need (unfortunately), to repeat an earlier article we did on viruses.
So please read that one if you haven't already seen it before.
Right, i think that just about wraps it up for this issue. Merry
christmas and a happy new year to all STOSSERS, along with anyone else
still left on the st scene. Thanks to all the p.d. libraries stocking
STOSSER for their help and support. Most of huge thanks to the following
people, without whom there wouldn't be a mag to support.
_________
ROLL CALL
---------
ARSHAD........... ACCRINGTON
ANDY CATO ........ NEWCASTLE
A.C. PORRITT....... HARTLEPOOL
BILLY ALLAN........ DUMBARTON
BEN RILEY....... ACCRINGTON
COLIN PRATT......... GOSPORT
LYNN PRATT......... GOSPORT
COLIN McALLISTER....... RENFREWSHIRE
DEAN SHARPLES....... ROCHDALE
DION GUY............... BISHOPS WALTHAM
FRED DARLINGTON...... PRESTON
IAN HOLDEN.......... BLACKBURN
JEAN-FRANCOIS BERJON.. FRANCE
JAMES HORNBY........ LONDON
JULIE WORDEN......... ACCRINGTON
KEITH DUNN............ COVENTRY
MARTIN CUBITT...... RAYLEIGH
MATTHEW GREEN...... CRAWLEY DOWN
STEVEN GOODING....... SOUTHSEA
TONY GREENWOOD....... ACCRINGTON
TONY GOODING.......... HANTS
WILLIAM MORRISON...... DONCASTER
WILFRIED KICKSTEIN.... GERMANY
R. WHITE......... N.IRELAND
BRIAN CROSSLAND........ CHESTERFEILD
ANDY MORGAN........... NUNEATON
JAMES AUBREY......... SUTTON
PIOTR J. TIMINSKI...... POLAND
JAMES AMES............ PRESTON
PHIL GRAINEER........ OKEHAMPTON
PAUL CHAPMAN........ HARTLEPOOL
RAPHAEL AST....... GERMANY
ROBERT LANNIGAN....... CARLUKE
JAMES L MATTHEWS.......... MAIDSTONE
NEVILLE WILSON...... BIRMINGHAM
MARCUS PLATT...... TAMWORTH
PAUL ARCHER........ WITHAM
CHRIS SHARP.......... DINAS POWYS
MARTIN ANDERSON...... LIVERPOOL
BOB GOODFELLOW......... DUNBAR
DEAN TACHBROOK....... NORWICH
ELLIS WATSON......... SWANSEA
CHRIS ??????? DERBY
DAVID RAE NORTHAMPTON
SIMON FREEMAN BIRMINGHAM
If we forgot to include your name, then we're sorry, maybe you should
drop us a line with an article or something to keep your name fresh in
our memory.
If you have any articles, comments, questions or you just want a natter
about anything st pooter related then write to:
KEEFY, 57 HEARSALL LANE, EARLSDON, COVENTRY, CV5 6HF
If you have any routines, accesories etc... write to:
TONY GREENWOOD, 29 PAXTON ST, ACCRINGTON, LANCS, BB5 1QQ
For all your the solutions to your STOS problems write to:
MARTIN CUBITT, 14 DEEPDENE AVE, RAYLEIGH, ESSEX, SS6 9LG
Thats it guys (and maybe gals, we don't know?), enjoy the zine, and above
all keep supporting us and with your help we'll be saying similar stuff
next christmas. I'm off for a tipple or two now. JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE
BELLS, JINGLE ALL THE WAY, OH WHAT FUN, IT IS TO READ, STOSSER EVERY DAY!.
******************************** STOP PRESS ******************************
STEN IS DEAD!!!!!!!. Yes the other day i got issue 15 of STEN and what we
were all dreading has been confirmed. There will be no STEN 16. Dave and
the lads have become completely disillusioned with the ammount of help
they were getting for the zine and have decided to pack it in. They'll
now be concentrating on other things. Good luck guys, and thanks for
supporting the ST scene so avidly. Let's hope it doen't end with the
demise of STEN.
For all you STOSSERS out there this should serve as a warning. So if you
can contribute in any way no matter how trivial or stupid it may seem, DO
IT!.