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The Final Frontier 2
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Final Frontier 2 (Disk 1 of 3).adf
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EDITORIAL
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INTRODUCTION
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INTRODUCTION
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1991-09-09
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171 lines
INTRODUCTION
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by Simon Plumbe
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Well, we're back!! It's a time of great joy and sadness for all Trekkers at
the moment with the launch of STAR TREK VI and the untimely death of Gene
Roddenberry that came as a shock to all of us. We respectfully dedicate this
issue of THE FINAL FRONTIER to him. I know I said we weren't going to use any
more digitised photos of previously used material, but I think you can
understand that photos were essential to accompany or tribute to Gene
Roddenberry for this issue. A man who, I think you'll all agree, will be
missed by millions worldwide and who will be remembered for eternity.
Overall the comments for Issue 1 were quite favourable (did any of you see
the reviews in "Amiga Computing" and "Public Domain" magazines?), but if you
thought that was good, wait and see what's coming in this and future issues!!
Even people who aren't TREK fans have given us quite good comments about
Issue 1!
We're sorry about the delay in releasing this issue, but this was for several
reasons - I've had quite a bit of difficulty in getting any music, the photos
to accompany the convention reports have taken longer to prepare than we
planned (I've had to buy a scanner especially to produce this issue), it's
taken me a long time to write everything (again!), we have spent two weeks
just testing the mag for compatibility and errors (for this we used FIVE
testers and we made changes to ALL the menus, the intro, the general disk
structure plus we also re-wrote about a dozen files!), plus we had to have a
new intro coded along with a new menu system. For the next two or three
issues, we will only release a mag when we have enough good material, so the
next issue will be out when it's finished and probably NOT in three month's
time. It's up to you, but I think it's better to have a good mag on an
occasional basis than a crap mag every month! To help us release an issue
more frequently, why not write for us? With saying that, as you can see, this
issue is on 3 disks, so stop complaining!
As I said, I had quite a lot of difficulty in finding music for this issue,
but as you'll see, we have two pieces of music by Bjørn A. Lynne, better
known to all you Amiga demo-freaks as Dr Awesome, the ex-member of the demo
crew, CRUSADERS! Neither of the tunes are exclusive to the mag, but I
couldn't pass up the opportunity to use his work! The tune on disk 2,
"Cosmos", was featured on an old demo by CRUSADERS, but the tune on the
intro, "Oblivion", is a brand new tune, and although it's not exclusive, THE
FINAL FRONTIER is the first place you'll see this tune released! Thanks
Bjørn! Also are another two great tunes by last issue's musician, Echo/LSD.
As you can see, there have been quite a few changes in terms of presentation
to this issue, but as well as that, the magazine has changed so that it is
now being produced under the POWER HOUSE name. Both myself and Andrew Wilk
are members of this demo crew, and now that this issue also has music from
one of our other members, Colin Adams (Cobra/Power House) we felt that it
would help the disk to be taken seriously among the demo-writing Amiga owners
throughout Europe. I will still retain 100% control over the magazine and it
will, ultimately, still be MY creation, but hopefully we'll see more art and
music from other members of Power House so it can only benefit the magazine
in the long run.
There are a few new regular articles starting this issue, including an
unusual one called "Oops!" looking at the mistakes and errors that we missed
in the previous issue. Hopefully this will be a VERY small article!! (But not
judging by the flaws we found with Issue 1. There were so many that we had to
release a "fixed" version shortly after its release!!)
All the usual stuff is still here, including the reviews, news, music, art,
convention reports (with photos plus a con report from GERMANY by Tobias
Richter) and everything else. Specials for this issue include two more
exclusive ray-traced pictures from Tobias Richter (these are brand new and
won't be seen ANYWHERE else! These are in Interlaced, Overscan HAM and they
are FAR better than the ones he did for Issue 1 and are amongst his best work
EVER!), a specially coded demo and another in our series of convention talks
with Guy Vardaman. There is also a "joke" picture by Colin Gunn. I know I
said that I wouldn't use "touched-up" digitised images, but I think you'll
agree that it was worth including this one! And this was done by a William
Shatner fan! (Load it and see what I mean!)
I know we promised TWO convention talks in the last issue but we discovered
that if we gave you two talks this time, we probably wouldn't have been able
to bring you a talk for issue 4. On top of that, there was no way that I
could have written TWO talks and still released the magazine as early as I
did. However, the John de Lancie talk and the talk by Carel Struycken will
both be in Issue 3! There will be talks in Issue 4, 5, 6 and 7 but we don't
know who with yet!
As you'll notice, we've improved the presentation slightly this time, with
the menus now being coded for us by Andrew Wilk. There was a slight problem
with the other system in that you occasionally had to drag the picture down
to get access to the CLI screen to run any of the software. Andrew offered to
create a customised system, so I agreed! You'll also notice that we're using
MuchMore to display the text instead of PPMore. This is not for compatibility
reasons or anything like that - it just looks better! However, Andrew is
working on including a text viewer into the menu-system, hopefully in time
for Issue 3! We will still keep the flexibility we have had with issues 1 and
2, but we will have the best menu system of ANY disk mag!
We have also added a few new menus and tried to improve the structure of the
mag. Conventions have now been given their own menu, containing con reports,
photos plus our con talks. We have also added a new Fiction menu, this issue
seeing several TREK parodies by Edwin Yau (I'm working on an epic, novel-
length, extremely cruel parody for a future issue!). Also, all the art and
animations we receive will now be placed in a separate "Art Gallery" which,
for this issue, can be found on disk 2.
Well, Trekkers all over the world are now enjoying THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY.
If any of you have seen it, send a review for our STAR TREK VI special
feature in Issue 3. We will be reviewing the film, the novel, the soundtrack
album, the comic and anything else to do with the film!!!!! Send your
contributions to this special feature fast!!
I know I said this last time, but although this mag is freely distributable
and is not shareware, any cash donations would be greatly accepted
(cheques/PO's payable to "Simon Plumbe"). We do have expenses such as
competition prizes, free copies to authors (this cost ME over £60 for issue 1
alone), mag adverts for new writers etc. Many thanks. We are trying to give
the mag a small income now by selling copies of the mag ourselves. The price
is £3 for Issues 1 or £4 for Issue 2 (inc. postage - outside UK please add
£0.50 per issue towards postage) and all the money left over goes back into
the magazine to cover our growing costs! If you want to make a donation, but
you don't really want to send a large sum of money, buy your next copy of THE
FINAL FRONTIER direct - every sale helps! There are no subscription rates
yet, as the mag isn't being released on a regular basis and no doubt we'll
end up getting enough material to release Issue 3 on 4 disks!!
From Issue 3 onwards, as an added incentive to persuade some of you to order
the magazine from us direct, we will be including a few articles/pieces of
art that will be password protected so they can't be loaded. When you order
the mag, you will be sent a customised version with your own unique password,
allowing you to read the extra articles. ALL the copies sent out will have
the articles on, but without the password (which will be different for EVERY
reader) they are useless! All those who contribute to the mag will also
receive their own password.
This mag was produced and edited by Simon Plumbe (that's me!), Colin Gunn and
Andrew Wilk. Additional help from Tobias Richter, Bjørn A. Lynne, Alex Kerr,
Edwin Yau and Barry Beale. It was really appreciated guys!
Editorial Address
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To contact THE FINAL FRONTIER either with contributions (all text to be sent
on paper or Amiga/Atari ST/PC-formatted 3.5 inch disks as 74-column ASCII
files or on audio cassette as dictated articles!), donations, orders or just
comments or if you are a software house or magazine interested in contacting
one of our contributors then write to:-
THE FINAL FRONTIER
c/o Simon Plumbe
14 Rousdon Grove
Great Barr
Birmingham
B43 5HN
ENGLAND
Or you can call me on (+44) (0)21 358 1213 after 7:00 pm, Mondays - Fridays,
or at anytime on weekends.
Live Long and Prosper....
Please note - we are NOT connected in any way with THE FINAL FRONTIER audio
fanzine.