p HI READER! HAIL THEE! q And welcome indeed at the twentyfifth issue of "ST NEWS" - Volume 4 Issue 4. It was made in the three weeks before Saturday, August 12th 1989, the day on which it was actually finished. p COPY INSTRUCTIONS q This disk is supplied on a standard formatted, double sided disk. It has the normal TOS number of sectors and tracks, and can be copied to any target disk with 9 sectors per track (and with 80 tracks; track 0-79) even by using the standard GEM built- in copy option (drag disk A icon to disk B icon and follow screen prompts). But what to do when you only have a single sided disk drive? In that case, you must make sure that the "ST NEWS.PRG" file and the "DISK_1.A" folder end up on disk one (A), and the "DISK_2.B" folder on disk two (B). There are no hidden files on this disk, and therefore copying should be no problem whatsoever provided that you have basic knowledge of GEM copying operations. It is not copy-protected and can be copied using any commercial copy program as well. p THIS DISK IS PUBLIC DOMAIN! q Which means that you can copy it to your friends and various acquaintances as much as you like. But, since making this issue cost us just about 6000 guilders (1600 pounds, $3000 dollars), we would not particularly mind receiving some (if possible hefty) donations at the correspondence address you'll find somewhere in this issue. p WHO DID THIS? q This issue was made by Stefan Posthuma (coding) and Richard Karsmakers (text). Various other people assisted in various fields, such as Jochen Hippel and David Whittaker (music), and Pete Lyon and Erik Simon (graphics). Various additional demo material was supplied by John Phillips and In Flagranti. p WHAT DOES THIS ISSUE OFFER? q Interviews with (20): Brynn Gilmore (Mastertronic), Lesley Walker (Mastertronic), Les Edgar (Bullfrog), Glenn Corpes (Bullfrog), Tim Moss (The Lost Boys), Michael Schussler (The Lost Boys), Anita Sinclair (magnetic Scrolls), Jez San (Argonaut), Alex Herbert ("Goldrunner II"), John Dower ("Goldrunner II"), John Phillips ("Nebulus"), Tony Cooper ("Cybernoid"), Steve Bak, Ben Daglish, David Whittaker, Ian Oliver ("Carrier Command"), Pete Lyon, Peter Johnson ("Arkanoid" & "Robocop") and Jeff Minter. Previews (35): "Populous Data Disk", "Hounds of Shadow", "Ferrari Formula One", "Hawk", "Argasm", "Thunderbirds", "Falcon Mission Disk", "Bloodwych", "Phobia", "Interphase", "Passing Shot", "Xenon II", "Guardian Moons", "Onslaught", "Scavenger", "Astaroth", "Stormlord", "Hell" ("Dante"), "Dogs of War", "Bomber", "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", "Loom", "Battle of Britain", "Batman - the Movie", "New Zealand Story", "Atari Portable Color Entertainment System" ("APCES"), "Oriental Games", "P47", "Greenpeace", "Mr. Heli", "Xenophobe", "Stuntcar Racer", "Rick Dangerous" and "Quartz". Music (5): "Panther" (by David Whittaker), "Knuckle Buster" (by Jochen Hippel), "Arkanoid + Hyper Sports Loader remix" (by Jochen Hippel), "Shades + Giana Sisters remix" (by Jochen Hippel) and "Zarjaz Mamacamel" (by Jochen Hippel). Pics (3): "Fright Night" (by Pete Lyon), "Rick Dangerous" (by Core Software) and "Astaroth" (by Pete Lyon). Demos (4): "Absolutely Insane Demo Screen" (colour as well as monochrome versions - by Stefan Posthuma), "ST NEWS Demo" (by In Flagranti), "Enigma" (by John Phillips) and "4-voice synth" (by John Phillips). Articles: Over 200 pages (that's over 20 hours of continuous reading at a good rate) - about 530 Kb. Code: Demos, pictures, music and other titbits - 488170 bytes. So this totals to about 1Mb of data on this disk. 1Mb of "ST NEWS" stuff on a regular double-sided disk... A yeah...the packer we used was supplied to us by The Lost Boys (TLB) Of London. Thanks, guys!! p SPECIAL MESSAGE TO GARD q In our hours of utmost despair during the finishing of this issue of "ST NEWS", there was only ONE thing that kept us going - only ONE thing that could bring faint smiles (even bursts of laughter) back upon our faces: The picture of yourself you sent us! We are very serious indeed: Whenever the bugs were crawling over the source files and dark clouds of bad moods were gathering, we just glanced at this small piece of shiny paper and that sufficed. Dear Gard: We hope to see you in Norway when we come to visit thee! We are abnormally indebted to you. Hail! p THIS IS IT q Final message from Stefan: Ok, it is READY! The 4 demos, the 5 musix, the 520Kb articles, the "ST NEWS" program who runs and calls it all, all the machine code, all the coding, EVERYTHING!!! It took me about 12 hours of hacking to get it all ready, and that was when I thought it was already finished! The whole thing (all demo coding, pageview coding, "ST NEWS" coding, packer coding, packing, crunching, freaking, cursing and falling into despair a dozen of times, must have taken God knows how many hours. I guess it must have been at least 250 of them... Thanks to Richard for converting 13 hours of audio tape into 520 kilobytes of articles (amazing...). Thanks to the Lost Boys for their exellent packer and thanks to Gard for the loony picture which kept us going!!! p IF YOU DO NOT ENJOY THIS ST NEWS, I WILL PERSONALLY STRANGLE YOU! q