Editorial
...Stephen


Stephen Graham


PO Box 8353
Largs
Ayrshire
Scotland
KA30 8HG
Tel: (0468) 508 871 ** Mobile **
stephen_graham@bigfoot.com

Doubleclick Issue 6 Editorial

Hello Readers,

Well, Christmas is now gone and forgotten for another year - only about 300 days until the next one! All the turkey and ham has been well and truly finished off, with the last of the sandwiches, and soup being consumed only last week. (This section was written at New Year, just in case you think I keep soup for months on end)

Needless to say, I shall have to get a larger wardrobe, as all I seem to get these days is clothes. Still didn't get my CD Rom, although my birthday is soon (See above, although it shall have passed when you read this, but any late presents shall be greatly received, or even very early ones for next year - I promise to give a mention to anyone that sends me anything!).

Well, it should be easier for Mark (the other editor) to send stuff to me now, as the E-Mail will be back on line, now that the Universities are both back for the Spring Term. Needless to say, I have got the diskspare.device working on my Amiga now, so that I can format disks to a dizzy 960K, which must be an all time record for a DD disk!

I also have an updated version of this system, but they two do not seem to be compatible, so I will have to redo all my disks. This will have to wait for now.

Spent all of the holidays playing ADoom. The creators of Doom, ID Software decided that for a great Xmas present, they would release the source code to their excellent PC (I hated saying that) game. Within minutes, Amiga programmers sat and pondered between eating their Christmas dinner, or trying to recompile an Amiga version of the game. Needless to say the turkey was given a reprieve until Boxing Day, as this is when Amiga versions of the game started to appear on the Web. My brother managed to get ADoom, and the WAD files for the game, which was pretty good going considering that he can only handle 700K at a time. Now we both play this game non stop, and my brother has already completed it. Amiga Format released their February Issue, and I expected the pages to be chock a block with news about this - nothing, not even a small mention. Even the Subscribers letter had no mention of this great addition to the all time Amiga games. Expect to read a review of this game from my brother somewhere in these hallowed pages [Er, no review as such this issue, although we have coveered it as a news item - Mark].
Thanks to all the people who bothered to send me a Birthday card and / or Birthday Greetings, and make me feel as old as I am. I could count all the replies I got in both my hands! Not as many as I had hoped, but enough all the same.
I now have a NEW E-Mail address. Thanks to those wonderful people at Bigfoot and Strathclyde University (namely my brother!), I have been able to get my own E-Mail Address, even though I am not personally Net connected. All mail sent to this address (which is shown above) will be redirected to my brother's E-Mail address in the University at no cost. Pretty neat. One good thing to come out of America at last (except for Snickers, M&M's and not forgetting our wonderful Amiga's).
Read in the papers last week that Bill Gates was attacked by some Belgian Tiswas fans. The Phantom Flan Thrower strikes again. I must say, that it could not happen to a nicer man. I have just heard that some bright person uploaded an MPEG Movie of said attack to the Aminet. The only problem is that it is about 4.3MB in size, so that rules out my idea of loading it as a Startup Anim. Apparently, the attack was carried out by a group of Belgian students, who target figures in the Media spotlight who "get too important for themselves". Obviously, Big Bad Bold Bill will be pretty near the top of the list, and when I read about this blatant "breach of human rights", I could only but laugh.

By the way - how many of our readers remember Tiswas? Not that many, I fear. Just to see how many people do remember, answer me this question: Can you name some of the comedians who started in Tiswas, and reached better and bigger things? Answers on a postcard to my PO Box, or my NEW E-Mail address: stephen_graham@bigfoot.com and I will mention the answers in the next issue, assuming I remember, and get some replies.

I must thank Richard Fletcher for sending me a disk with loads of new ideas for the mag, as well as some articles. Hopefully, we should be able to use your articles in this issue, but things are getting a bit full just now, so we may have to hold them over to DC7 [nope, they're all in this issue! - Mark]. Also, your example magazine that you sent to me was absolutely storming - I shall be playing your case very heavily - I showed it to my brother, who also is an Amiga nut, as he was equally impressed. Please send me more of the same - your talents are not wasted! Have you made any original OctaMED Music Modules that we would be interested in? I am sorry, by the way, but I will not be sending your details to my brother for any Amiga Contacts for one good reason - he could talk about Star Trek for the country - if it was an Olympic Sport, he would be there. I am more like you, although I do like to watch Star Trek TNG (The Next Generation if you did not know, although there is nothing that can surpass the original!)
Things to look out for in this issue are of course anything written by myself - Pit Stop (Pretty good this month - especially the letter at the end of it), my new, improved PD Guide, and my PPaint Tutorial, although I apologise now for the Tutorial being a bit patchy, as I have been VERY busy lately, and I have had to let things slide. As I have not yet seen the pre release version of the magazine (late February), I cannot comment on much else. The magazine is sort of made in two halves, which are seamlessly fitted together in the end, until all the technical hitches are found, where we have to start from scratch again!
One last thing before I finish this Editorial. Can anyone supply me with a cable to connect my Z88 Laptop computer (yes, the one made by Sir Clive Sinclair) to my Amiga A1200. I have a software package that can handle data transfer, but any more programs would not go a miss. Please contact me anytime at the above address, phone number (although remember it is a Mobile phone, although I can probably call you back, as my calls are free), or E-Mail address. I am willing to pay postage for the cable and / or disks as well. I am quite urgently needing this, as I now have found a good use for my Z88, and connecting it to my Miggy would be a BIG help.

While I am in my "please help a poor Amiga User" state, and that I have got you reading anyway, I want to pick someone's brains concerning Amigaguide documentation. My problem is that I want to be able to display an Amigaguide in colour, with some text one colour and some another. I know how to get white (using @fg shine and @fg text to return to black), but I cannot get any other colours. I saw a guide once that used blue, but did not find out how it was done. It is possible, but I cannot see how. As for the other mags, they are not really interested in how to do it. AF ran a one off tutorial a few months back, but it was VERY basic, and did not cover much. Pity they did not keep it up, as I was looking forward to learning more about it, as I am used to writing Amigaguides (Just look at the two I write for the mag for examples - you are welcome to load it into a text editor to see how it is done). Is there any learned people out there who will take pity on my soul?

Thanks for watching. See you next issue.

Stephen Graham
January - March 1998

Member of Pentrisoft - Supporting Shareware & Its Authors
Co Editor of Doubleclick! - The Pentrisoft Amiga Disk Magazine
E-Mail: stephen_graham@bigfoot.com