home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Floppyshop 2
/
Floppyshop - 2.zip
/
Floppyshop - 2.iso
/
diskmags
/
3565-4.665
/
dmg-3609
/
news.txt
/
falcon.asc
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1989-04-05
|
10KB
|
158 lines
##############################
# #
# Do NOT buy the Falcon! #
# ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ #
# by Colin Maunton #
# ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ #
##############################
Why not? Well, let me give you a little 'background' first. I saw
the STEN reviewed in an ST mag. and it said something like 'games are
firmly on the back burner and it covers the more serious subjects'. Well,
it sounded good, too good to be true in fact. Having now read it I must
agree, it really is serious. The projects section was seriously beyond me
as was the programming. I disliked all that stuff about hackers almost as
much as the rubbish about UFO's, disappearing battleships, JFK being shot
and aliens on the dark side of the moon, or did I mis-read something on my
tiny screen? Is the sort of thing that can be downloaded from
international bulletin boards? Forget them!
Nevertheless, I quite like the idea of the magazine. Like a computer
club, it is a place to share experiences and learn from others mistakes. I
have had my STE a couple of years now but I hardly feel qualified to spout
about it. You see, despite that I use it for 'serious' things, I am not a
serious user. For instance, I read about installing a programme to run
automatically when loaded, so I tried it with WriteON. Snag was that the
'KEYSHOW.ACC' would not then work even though it apparently had loaded. I
suppose that if I had been a 'serious' user I would have gone to great
lengths to find out what was happening. I have no patience, I simply put
it back as it was!
But to get back to the Falcon. One of my mates at computer club has
been drooling over it for months, and visited the computer fair in Hamburg
or somewhere to get hands-on experience. Could he get there without his
wife? Not likely, so his intended purchase has cost him a bomb already!
Talking of which, I was getting more than my share of bombs on screen and
the STE has been in and out of a friendly repair shop far too much. It
seems that each time I pick up the machine, the whole case flexes just
that wee bit. I transport it to club nearly every week and the constant
flexing caused the chips to work loose. The solution to this problem
might be to transport and use it standing on a stout board so that it is
supported, flat and unflexed, like a spinal injury patient. It will be
less messy than plaster-of-Paris! I hope that the 'new' Falcon case will
be more substantial, not that it will affect me, as I am about to tell
you.
This 'inside' information transpired thus: I was towards the end of
one of my thrice-weekly exercise walks, brisk, thirteen minutes per mile
come rain, hail or shine disciplines intended to stop me grinding to a
halt with a coronary attack. I live a few miles west of Margate where the
Thames Estuary, North Sea and Straits of Dover all boil up in a boisterous
way, where there is hardly ever a still, windless day. But this was just
such a day and walking was pleasant but hot. I walk the sea-wall, a
coastal defence and promenade, down below the chalk cliffs and, in poor
weather, quite solitary except for the odd bait-digger or shrimper. Those
diggers shift a football pitch of sand, cold, backbreaking work, for a few
worms. If they put as much effort into their gardens as they do into the
quest for bait, they could win prizes!
Well, the sun was setting behind me in the West, and as I walked into
my final section before heading for home I was gobsmacked by the view.
The cliffs were bathed in an orange glow from the setting sun. One or two
ships were anchored in the 'roads' off Margate, their riding lights
twinkling in the distance, reflected in the glassy sea. And behind them,
surreal, a great cream glob,the much magnified by atmospheric haze, full
moon, rising from the sea. This was one of those magic moments for which
every serious amateur photographer always carries a camera. There is the
chance of something newsworthy or pictorial, a body, a wreck, a WWII mine
floating in on the current. Unfortunately, though I am a 'serious'
lensman I just did not have the right equipment with me! Okay, I had
none, but this needed specific gear, a short telephoto lens, tripod,
because of the low light, and colour slide film. This was no case for B&W
film, nor for colour print film. You see, the colours needed to be caught
just as they were, unbelievable as they were. Slides will do this, but
try it with a print film and those silly computers at the printers decide
that something is awry and filters your print to bits. What was a
memorable shot is now in sunset colours, because the CPU. recognises
sunsets but has never heard of moonrise! Tell the printers that you have
something unusual on film, a 'sepia' filter perhaps, and back should come
a pale brown olde world print. Chances are that it will be green though!
Anyway, kicking myself, I resolved to attend this favoured spot on
the following evening in the hope that there would be a repeat performance
and that I could capture the picture of a lifetime. Like other 'serious'
photographers, I have yet to take my best photograph! But wait, tide
times change daily and bear no relationship to the sun because they are
influenced by the moon, so that must mean that the moon will rise earlier,
or later, the following day, which? And how much earlier or later, will
there be too much or too little sunshine to make a picture effective? It
rained all next day so it was of no great consequence! Then the database
in my head screamed at me that this was not mid-summer. Years ago I saw a
great picture, albeit in black and white, of a farmhouse and a few trees.
Sitting to one side was that old man on the moon, looking almost as big as
the farmhouse. This was in the days before colour and 'sandwiched' slides
where moons are easily faked into almost any scene. The author of the
picture was German, the picture was taken 'on midsummers day, the only day
of the year when the sun and moon are in direct opposition and the balance
of light is right' Miss the shot and wait a year? But MY opportunity had
been in October, why?
See the Falcon looming yet? Read on! I went to my local public
library, had they a table of astrological happenings which I could consult
to see whether there was a likely conjunction of sunset/moonrise within
the next twelve months? I was steered to the Whittakers Almanac which
showed stages of the moon, predicted times of rising at points East and
West of Greenwich and sunsets likewise. It creased my eyes to gather the
information, almost as much as reading STEN, but yes, it appeared to
happen every month, a rising full, or almost full moon at sunset! Now the
Germans are great with their Leica, and with the ATARI too, but what was
this once-a-year stuff? The eighth of November was pencilled in for a
shoot so it rained most of the day! By late afternoon there was a clear
patch over the sea and the sun shone. I got my gear together and stood
hopefully by my tripod under lowering cloud. "Taking pictures?" asked a
lady walking her dog, in disbelief I am sure. I mumbled something, the
light was going and there was no trace of the moon. The lights of Margate
were coming on, a couple of ships anchored off were tossing in the short
chop that is usual around here and I was beginning to fret, and freeze!
There was cloud out on the horizon, somewhere in the murk, perhaps a moon
too?
The scene lightened a little. Rainclouds around the setting sun were
heading out to sea and the extra light gave hope of a shorter exposure. A
few spots of rain whipped past in a flurry and suddenly, there it was, the
full moon, higher than anticipated because it had indeed been cloud-
obscured Exposure is always a problem under unusual conditions so I used
a 'bracketing' system for safety, take a load and at least one will be
something like it! I shot about a dozen frames on 35mm. in the first
minute, then relaxed and changed my viewpoint for some more. The
rainclouds that had moved off the sun were now scudding moonwards and I
ended with a shot of a part-obscured moon. So I had read the tables in
the Whittakers correctly! The 'late' moonrise was due to cloud, nothing
else. I have not yet seen the results of my labours, I am due to shoot
the rest of the film today, the 10th.December. I shall not because (a) it
is murky and (b) I have 'flu' and am in no state to venture out.
FALCON. Yes, yes, getting to it now. Our library will not be able
to afford the Whittakers every year, it is an expensive book! I have a
brilliant wife who, hearing of the problem, walked in with 'Foulshams
original Old Moores Almanac', complete with sun and moon tables, high
tides, lighting-up times, the lot. I now know when to look for that
picture throughout 1993, and I have my personal prediction for health and
wealth, racing certainties, pools predictions too, all for 95p.
March '93, that is the real relevance of this piece. On the 23rd. the
new moon falls in Aries, EXACTLY opposed to the UK Uranus. This indicates
a MAJOR advance in computer technology apparently, so I can see no point
in investing in the Falcon if it is obsolescent, can you?
C.M.
For the technically minded, the prize-winning pictures not reproduced here
were taken on Fuji 50 ISO film using an Olympus OM1 and Zuiko 100mm. lens.
~~~ eof ~~~