Hi ya people, we're back at last! It has been a while since Psycho #1 came out (about 2 months ago) and the mag has changed for the better since then. I needed a two-month deadline, because I knew there were going to be problems with Psycho #1. For instance, I couldn't test it on a A500. I didn't use more than 770 KB (I guess), but the program refused to run on anything but a 3.0 A1200. Because I kicked my Ami to 1.3 I knew 1.3 didn't work. Even though I had all the old libraries and handlers. Another problem was that amoS (which I used to get the mag rolling fast, in terms of the time required to produce it) couldn't handle files of the size of Psycho that easily. So now I have made a seperate datafiles which have the pix text and modules in it. As a bonus, Psycho now is fixed to work as a interpreter of these datafiles So you only need the most recent 'Asylum' file and put all the 'xxx,data' and 'xxx.text' files on your HD in the same directory and everything else is handled automatically! You can select which issue you want and then that particular issue is loaded into Psycho. This saves huge amounts of space and if I finally code Psycho in Asm then the old issues are working faster too. And if there ever will be future incompatibility problems, I can update the Mag file so it works on any new operating system. So everything is fixed to work fine on even an 1MB A500, even under 1.3. I promise to start coding Asm soon, but for now I'm not very good at coding. My supposedly simple copperlist calculating routine crashed like a wingless 747 on iCE's A500. Why it happened, I dunno. Anyway, this issue is a hardware-special. That means that we've specifically highlighted pieces of hardware as our main items for articles. We have many interesting DIY hax and also another batch of plain articles. Luckily iCE and Sgt. Reese wrote in about sum things, but sadly I didn't get too much feedback from outside the group. Now that's not very nice of you! I bet you know something to write about, a great story of something unbelievable that happened to you, or something you noticed or whatever. Anyhow, we want the mag to be as international as possible and you may even write in your own native language. If you haven't experienced Ish #1, order it now. You'll be astonished how much has improved since then! One last remark: because of the huge amount of homework involving tests at school, Psycho is bit of a week late. It sure was worth waiting for, eh? Hope you'll have lotza of fun reading psycho, Dutchie / Chaos D·Sign How to support the next issue of PSYCHO... Have you anything to tell us being worth including in this magazine? It doesn't have to be scene-related, as long it isn't one of those subjects that gonna make people puke. Like piracy or the threat of consoles, Pc's, martians etc. Also no racistic or otherwise over-abusive material will be placed. If you have a radical idea, or any news, or have found a great new utlitiy/game then don't hestitate to write a report. Fame starts here and as long as we've diskspace, we promise not to be too picky either! You can support our Charts by sending us a votesheet, either printed or on disk. I strongly urge you to use the Vote Tool supplied on disk, which creates a file which can be automatically fed into our vote's counter and will save ICE's fingertips from injuries caused by excessive typing. ICE hated the votingtool idea, but as I'm not the one going to count the votes, I don't need to care either. (Hi ICE!) Articles Votes / Swapping Dutchie ICE / CDS Papiermolen 33 Oliemolen 156 1622 KV Hoorn(NH) 1622 JS Hoorn(NH) The Netherlands The Netherlands The seven GuideLines to get articles, letters, stories, etc. published in PSYCHO! 1. We will place anything. 2. I will edit out most of the spelling errors. 3. Grammatical errors will stay put, just to make you look stupid. 4. I might comment on anything worth commenting on, just to show I'm not one of those Eddy's that place anything (see rule 1). Without FIRST READING it! (I once got an article published in a mag which had in fact more unfinished sentences in it than finished ones...) 5. Needless to say, all un-ascii trash goes straight into the diskmasher... (No, not the one you're thinking of...) 6. And yet another advantage to our Black List Club Members, anything you send us goes straight into the our city's 'Open Sewer System (TM)', which lies (how convienently!) just under Dutchie's window. 7. Krrr... Access to 7th GuideLine denied... Beep! PS: due to the way articles are processed the quote character is always replaced by an apostrophe. Hope you don't mind... otherwise send any hatemail to: Dutchie... me that is! W A R N I N G - N E W A R T Y P R O T O C O L ! Extra Typefaces, Colours, Bold/UnderLine/Italic Texts... There's an additional 'Header' Font, which is twice as high and more than twice as wide as the normal StraightJacket 9 (×8) font. Also, you can make a line displayed 'bold'. Enhanced Arty Protocol to be used in CygnusEd: (This is not about addys!) Colour...... Ctrl+O,x where x is to be replaced with a pen colour from 0 up to 7. Spacing..... Ctrl+P The first spacin' comand will tell Psycho to stretch every following line to fit 80 characters / line. The 2nd will stop spacing. BigFont..... Ctrl+Q,8,Ctrl+Q Put that at the start of a line and leave a blank line under each BigFont line. The BigFont lines may contain up to 38 characters, bigger lines will be truncated. These lines will also be auto-centred, so don't put any spaces in front of the actual text. Any other text formatting commands should be omitted, otherwise you may screw up the text. Italic...... Ctrl+Q,1,Ctrl+Q Bold........ Ctrl+Q,2,Ctrl+Q UnderLine... Ctrl+Q,4,Ctrl+Q Ctrl-Q Combo's: Add up the values of the required styles. ECS Palette = CCD,000,xxx,xxx,xxx,xxx,xxx,xxx The colours for use with the Ctrl+O option can be defined using a config file that must have the same name as your article, but has HEX ECS palette values in it. If you're having trouble with this, don't hestitate to write and tell us. Dpaint ECS uses the same palette codes, only replacing HEXadecimal letters with DECimal values: A=10, B=11, C=12, D=13, E=14, F=15... Ctrl+O = Asc Code 15 Ctrl+P = Asc Code 16 Ctrl+Q = Asc Code 17 Because of changing protocol, always follow the latest issue's guidelines. It's more than likely newer and better versions will come out, so keep up to date and don't get us a headache checking every file you send us. The speed of Psycho may be slowed down by many changing text styles, both because the texts are external, so have to be interpreted each time they're read from disk. The screen height is 20 characters for Arty's. Because you will add a blank line after each BigFont, the information bar in CED always shows you correctly in what position you would be if you are in PsYchO. Lines 1 to 20 are page one, 21 to 40 page two, etc. etc. (Look at that Line counter on your right!) Another tip: use wordwrap at 80 characters and type without using the return key. Then move the cursor to the start of the file and keep 'Amiga+f' pressed at the non-ANSI stuff to get yar lines spaced up to 80 characters, making things more readable, without having to add spaces yarself! Lack of Music & GFX As we expected, we didn't have any music ready for the Mag, so I invite all Musicians to have a try on creating a pleasant module to enhance the reading pleasure of future PsYcHo readers. Also, we would like to ask a graphician to depict one of the approximately 100 Fiesta Incidents. A Fiesta lookalike is the cover of Psycho #1, so there you have an example of what he should look like. We want to use them as clips inside the mag, so make them max. 320 x 200 big. Also any pix for the intro page are apreciated. Full creditz to the makers... We like to see these clips in monochrome: Col0=white, Col1=black. Send nothing but ECS Iff formats... (For those AGA artists unknown to ECS, which might be possible, better use Brilliance, as it allows you to define the size of the palette. The palette must be set to 4096 for ECS colours, instead of 16M. Also to be ECS compatible, no use of SuperHires is allowed, nor Hires (Laced) Images using more than 16 colours. Screens may be no bigger than the standard screens. ) AGA Artists that like to work in 256 colours should convert the 256 colour-files to HAM6 for minimum loss of detail. And look at that RT-Clip util, for the latest word in special DiskMag features! We are urgently seeking Coders, Graphicians and Musicians around the globe, so contact us when you're interested. Eddy D.u.t.c.h.i.e PS: About that Amoß shit. I hate it. There's a lot of asm included though, so don't cry. 'House Style' Try to use proper grammar. Phonetic spelling is allowed, but please don't take it too far. The name o' da writer comes on the end + yar group's name. If you're not into sum group, you're Independant, so write that down. Also inform us of your age, so we don't need to wonder why somebody sends us articles named 'Is Pampers Boy such a stonker as it's said to be' or 'Bite rings, don't ya love 'em' Well, no more rules, I really don't know some more.... Sure I like to pester you with sum more, but honest, I can't think of any more... Oh and do quote from which country your from and in which language it's written. I've drawn sum real nice flags for about every country where da Amiga rulez. You may write in other languages, but do tell us what's it about. And any Danish, Swedish or Norwegian Dude who thinks they can outsmart us by sending in stupid stories and telling us it's a real hot story... Remember, we just take sum farmer down da road to read it. It's unbelievable but sum farmin' chaps can read those languages without a even been trained to learn 'em... It seems the local farmer dialect resembles these languages like nothing else! (Nothin' to insult da languages, honest, it's true!) If anybody sees were doing something consistently wrong in our use of English, write in and make us look stupid! A d s f o r S w a p p i n g / G r e e t z E t c ! _______________________ ___________ _ ___ __ _ _ |TyPe MAx cOst | NoTEs | ·------------ ----------------------·---- · · · -· |Swap Ads/ Group Ads | | Anyone.............. 3 - Shared Addy's max. 3 each person too! | | A group............. 20 - | All member's Adds added together! | |___________________ _______________|__ _ _ _ _| W e U s e T o p a z 8 f o r A d d y ' s We will sort the Addy's by Group, Greetz or Location (country) so select where you want to your addy to be included. Unlike some other magz, you can use all standard Roman Keymap characters, so al those people (german, french, scandinavian) with odd characters in their names can safely enter their normal namez. Please don't write any addy's on a Pc or Mac or Nintendo otherwise you'll get really screwed up shit. Addy's are, unlike Articles not in StraightJacker 9 or 18 font. Possible Addy Limits: 40*12(?) 40*25 80*12 80*24 We don't (yet) use colours, clips, or alternative fonts... Any screwup who does his addy's in some obscure format can expect to have nothing placed... All addy's will be placed, unless you are on our 'black list'. We might think up some other roolz 2... Oh and if your busy anyway, put some newstuff on the disk you send us too... Dutchie / CDS or ICE / CDS Papiermolen 33 Oliemolen 156 1622 KV Hoorn(NH) 1622 SJ Hoorn(NH) The Netherlands The Netherlands - Lightballs, Trackpens, come and go, but CDS is here to stay! - Dutchie: ICE: Mario Heliczer Rick Klaassen Papiermolen 33 Oliemolen 156 1622 KV Hoorn 1622 JS Hoorn The Netherlands The Netherlands The Trashcan +31 - (0)2290-35368 19:00 - 8:00 mo tu we th 19:00 - 12:00 sa su Cyberdyne Systems +31 - (0)2990- 21:00 - 24:00 mo tu we th sa su - Friendship Rules - Back Issues of Psycho, da Mag. Iz#1 - Collector's Item - Cover: Psycho o' the Month, a beautiful digitized 'Fiesta' by Dutchie Music: Collector's Item by Crocoboy (we chose it for the name!) News : 100 signs that you might be related to Fiesta! DIY-Guide hacks #1 to #4 Local branch of McDonald's reviewed Solved 2 of 3 Unsolved Mysterious Unsolvable Mysteries A 50-page diary of what a pain it was for Dutchie to buy a digitizer. Commodore lives & Amiga assembly will be continued in the UK. Note : NOT COMPATIBLE ON ANYTHING LESS THAN A KS3.0 A1200! Iz#2 - New Style - Cover: Reel Ugly Music: News : HARDWARE SPECIAL! A1200 HardDrives & Boards reviewed. DIY-Guide hacks #5 to #10 Build an A1200 RT Clock, Sampler, MIDInterface or VCR/TV on your monitor cable or a Video-Scart cable... Note : Psycho is now compatible with everything from 1.3 onwards... I hope. Receiving New Iz's. We at Psycho do anything to get you your copy as quick as possible. CDS Members get te Mag 1 or 2 dayz in advance, and they'll spread it, only if they promise not to put it on da BBS's before the official release date. Not that anyone listens to that, as Psycho gives them ratio's beyond belief, but okay, it's some sort of agreement. Now, if you don't have any fast contax, you might have to wait for Psycho a few days. Here's how to receive da mag faster: .1 Download it from iCE's BBS, The Trashcan. 21:00 - 7:00 CET each day at +31-(0)2290-35368. The mag will be placed there on the official day of publication. .2 Via da ®eal fast European mail network (Mail Sendings are Europe Only!) To allow post to catch up, we'll send you the disks 2 days in advance. Normal DeLuxe Legal Normal Deluxe Legal _______ _______ _______ ______ ______ ______ | | | | | | | | 1 Iz | 1.75 | 2.50 | 3.20 | | 2 | 3 | 4 | 6 Iz | 10.50 | 15.00 | 19.20 | | 12 | 18 | 24 | 12 Iz | 21.00 | 30.00 | 38.40 | | 24 | 36 | 48 | |_______|_______|_______| |______|______|______| Prizes In Dutch Guilders Or in disks (good ones, unlabeled, 1 Dfl = 0.95 DM = $0.60 = £0.35 unused, formatted & errorfree!) We are not into it to make any profit, so we can't give you a reduction if you order more than one copy. The advantage to take a 12-issue subscription is that you don't need to pay extra once postal costs, or disk prizes rize. Normal: Psycho is copied (verify + check) on a disk and put in a envelope, we stamp it 'port payed' on it... done... Deluxe: Like normal, but the disk will be send to you in special protective envelopes, so that the disk won't be squashed in the post, or Mr. Postman steals yar Psycho because he can see it's a disk. Legal : Like Deluxe, only there are GENUINE, REAL & above all LEGAL stamps on the envelope! Even though we send you Psycho in advance, better keep in mind postal sendings are slower than downing from The Trashcan! If anybody sends us fuck disx or bad cheques or something else stupid, it's their own responsibility. I format all disx and sell 'em for about .80 Dfl. This is just below the average prize level of normal noname disx. State clearly which issue(s) of Psycho you wish to receive. You can't order more than 12 copies in advance. Cheques must be made payable to Mario Heliczer and be drawn on any Dutch bank. Please send your order to Dutchie for quickest service. - Amiga Rules - // \// -o-O Member List of da CDS posse! x.x- - _ CDS... nothing like CDI! In order of appearance: cOd gFx sFx sYz sWa mOd Main: Dutchie...... + ± - - ± - Organizer, Coder iCE.......... - ± - + + + Organizer Crocoboy..... - - + - - - Musician Sgt. Reese... - - - + ± - Syzzo, Codin' can wait... Sonik........ - - - - +¹ - Swapper Cody......... - + - - + F Swapper TTT.......... - - - - - + Modem Swapper VLab......... - + - - - - Video Digitizer (3.0 par) Rover........ Hamster #1 Stripe....... Hamster #2 Satan........ Neighbour's Dog ¹) Mostly Gamez Swoppin' +.... Yeah ±.... Yep, more o' less... -.... Nope ?.... Haven't got a clue! F.... Future We infiltrated Hoorn, Enkhuizen, Purmerend and Alkmaar... Wanted desperately: - Asm Coders, (now don't confuse that with Amos Coders!) Musicians and Graphicians. Preferably living in The Netherlands. - New CDS BBS's in Alkmaar and Enkhuizen... requires Syzzo's with attitude and enough cash/sponsors to get a single line BBS running. - One or more AGA swappers in Enkhuizen. - Donations to dump a dumb old Pc for a nice A2000 for ICE's BBS. AnY OthEr spOnsOrs (EspEcIAllY thE kInd thAt gIvE Us mOnEy) To become a member (or want to donate) write to: Dutchie or iCE Papiermolen 33 Oliemolen 156 1622 KV Hoorn 1622 SJ Hoorn The Netherlands The Netherlands Alternatively confront iCE with your request in The Trashcan, where filth meets garbage... BBS SysoP Call Opening Times The Trashcan iCE +31-(0)2290-35368 19:00 - 8:00 mo tu we th 19:00 -12:00 sa su Cyberdyne Systems Sgt. Reese +31-(0)2990-36812 21:00 - 7:00 mo tu we th sa su Sgt. Reese suffers under lotza uploads by pc-nerds, plees upload him sumthing cool, he has no Amiga stuff at all! Warning! The Trashcan will be off-line soon, because we will dump the PC! So don't call until we're sure things work out. - Friendship Rules - D U T C H I E / C H A O S D · S I G N There are no requirements to become a member, other than be able take initiative and wanting to lead both CDS and the Amiga to a bright future. Errrm... To become a member (or want to donate) write to: Dutchie or iCE Papiermolen 33 Oliemolen 156 1622 KV Hoorn 1622 SJ Hoorn The Netherlands The Netherlands Current CDS Projects We have plans for a 'big' demo, but as my Asm isn't even sufficiently advanced enough to open up a proper screen, things may not appear until years to come. It has been a busy pair of months, school and Psycho taking lots of my time, so it might take a while before we'll be actually releasing something. I'm practicing my Asm. Now I've some kind of contact with this Toni Wilen geezer from FileMaster, I finally know somebody who can help me out on some system coding and 'coz I've written Nico François from PowerPacker I will also have sum support for that too. The next things you'll noticed thanx to my new knowledge of Asm: Word Driller will be localized... So will Psycho (well, only the buttons and help texts) and my HD install will install Icons using PutDiskObject, instead of simply copying an icon on your HD, possibly covering other icons. Happy I got that problem solved. Errmmm... well, I don't know anything else to say, except that I hope we'll get some more contributors (GFX, music, articles) to Psycho, so I have some time left for other stuff. Well, I'll see... Dutchie / CDS Official figures on Chaos Systems ----------------------------------- Chaos Systems, the people who brought us the great... uhm, Word Driller and... er... well, not much else to be honest. Chaos D·Sign is just the scene branch which isn't started to make money. Chaos Systems has been 'in business' since Jan 1994, but is nothing official. So it's no real company... and then again it makes too little money to be like one... (1994) Profit (Dfl) Sep + 51,40 Oct + 53,20 Nov + 61,40 This month's newz: Lightwave goes Silly Graphix Engine and Not There Old newz... NewTEK, probably scared like hell of C='s 'demise', programmed Lightwave to work on Silicon Graphics machines and for Windoze Not There for da PPc. Har har! Widows NT costs ya 80 MB of harddisk space minimum, together with the Lightwave pack it'll blow da fuses... When will people learn bigger isn't better? Anyway, an improved Ami version has been released too, so we don't need to cry ourselves to sleep tonite, do we? Amiga 1000, a sophisticated computer for home use Any Dutch readers that happen to have a '87 version of the Winkler Prins Encyclopedia should look up the word 'computer' and see the 'advanced A1000'! Although C= didn't promote too much, these encyclopedia makers sure did their homework quoting the Ami back then as the most advanced and sophisticated computer for home use. Usually most people that write about computers tell us that '87 was the year they bought an expensive AT when they just had this perfect XT-thang... And that they felt great bein' ripped off for $3000! CBS Scene Statistix due for ChristMas I bet you all want to know how big the scene actually is! Now we at CDS have taken the effort to find it out! The December Issue of Psycho will have stats on the biggest groups and stuff. Now if you are the organizer/leader of a group (or you happen to know one, which is logical if you are in the scene) then tell him to send us a letter that says which group were talking about and how many members they have in which countries and ofcourse the total nr. of members. No list of handles, just a group and sum figures and countries. If it's a well organized team, that wouldn't be too much of a trouble we think. Anyway, we have put this message on several BBS's. On the disk is a standard message and we ask you to spread it on BBS in your country to get the word known! Support da Scene Statistix now! Send yar reports to Dutchie for fast results! soOOoper Votetool finally workin' As you can see, we have the soOoper Votetool included in the mag this time. I had quite some trouble with it, but I've put sum effort in making it user-friendly. It has quite some options, read the arty about how the thing works! Addy Inquiries It seems that people mistake Addy for Address instead of Advertisement, which Dutchie thought to be correct. We won't change that, unless we recieve more than one letter complaining about it. Not! 3.0? 1.3? Psycho works on da A500! And uses just 1 MB! Hurray! It was due to a bug in the Amos Pro Compiler that the program didn't run. And it was the same bug why a game for the A500 didn't work on it. The game in question is Soccer Team Manager, a game made by sum Italians with a vid-digitzer and Amos. Sadly the publisher, Summit Software, wasn't even intelligent enough to test wether the game worked. Funnily, like with Psycho, it does work on the A1200. But when I 'played' this Footy Manager Sim, it bailed out on me in the middle of the game! So not only didn't this game work on da 500, it didn't work at all! And worse of all, the person that had this game just was goin' legal! So he had bought it for £13! I think some software companies are ruining it for the others... CD³² Dumped Want a CD³²? They're just bein' dumped in Germany. Even though there's no 1-year guarantee, it is cheap: £60 to £80! It's said C= Germany's behind it, just to make sum cash to pay their own paychecks... or sumtin' like that. Not Very Wise Dutch team, Team Hoi, published a game called ClockWiser. I haven't played it, but it's like a puzzzzzle game. Like Cognition, sum other game of 'em. This one's really commercial, coz' they published it through Rasputin Software... Yep, the people repsonsible for all that Amos crap. Like Jet Strike, which must be the least bugged(!) commercial Amos Game ever... And did we mention the bugggged Amos gamez Genesia and Soccer Team Manager? Boy, no wonder Europress has bailed out on Amos. Must be coz' Dutchie send them a 250-point bugreport about the latest version of Amos Pro! Paint-o-rama! Brilliance II is out, but I hadn't had a chance to look at it. But I did receive a Dpaint-V demo, which really shows sum improvements. It still hasn't many of Brilliance's nice functions, but then again, most of the functions I use are better in Dpaint V. One thing though: Dpaint still uses it's own custom requesters, but they try to imitate the 3.0 idea. So it employs one of them rotten font requesters that display the font when you click on it. Well, I've got an HD, FastMem and all, but it's hell if I use scalable fonts. A mayor inprovement is that the pattern fill is finally AGA. Previous pattern fills didn't use more than 16 colours for a gradient fill... like, what do we have AGA for then? So finally you can show off AGA power in less than a minute. Also a good move is the new palette thang, which was slow as hell on both Bril and Dpaint. On top of that, Dpaint used a HAM screen for da palette, which gave 'false' colours AND was slow like hell. I don't know how things are in Bril II, but I hated the seperate Ham Bril and plain Bril. That's the main reason why I don't use it no more. Oh, and Dpaint V has an Arexx interface! Hurray! And you can have anims with different palettes for each frame! Finally can I animate full-colour VLab images without having palettes mixed up! Sonik joins Iris? Sonik supposedly was pissed off 'coz I returned his sending... I didn't know better than that swappers would like their disx back, but he thought that I as organizer and hardworking Psycho Editor had time to copy some stuff on it. And as I ain't a swapper, sorry. But as Sgt.Reese reported us, Sonik was swoppin' mates with Daffy, who has now become head of Iris and asthings go, Sonik is now 'Coordinator for The Netherlands' of Iris. Or something. My, my, a non-overrated job-description if I ever saw one... Gamez, gamez and gamez... I've seen some very good-looking A1200 screenshots lately... TFX, Super Stardust, Cannon Fodder II, Theme Park... and many CD titles that looked absolutely stunnin'. And a tip we got out of an old issue of JSW What's iCE sayin' there? Press da button on da right of your Ami to get da disk out...? What da hell does he mean? Hmm, let's give it a try... Huh? ...errm... we knew that! Honest! Errrmmm....... even though probably nobody has read Psycho Ish #1, we were incorrect to state even back then that C= was saved. It was true that people wanted to take over C= international, but negotiations had just been started, no real decisions were taken then. Commodore Netherlands is dead for sure, sum Dutch papers reported this. True is that Commodore Germany is dead for sure. Coz there was no DSV Seaquest on German Commercial channel RTL, which was sponsored by 'Amiga' and 'coz they dumped loads of CD³²'s. Dutch papers quoted something vague like that the creditors would get sum cash from selling stuff from da Phillipine-based plant. As the word liquidation means as much as ripping a company from anything of value, it can be said for sure that if anybody wants to continue Amiga, then they'll end up with nothing but the technology, the production stuff has all been sold to get sum cash to pay off debts. As the liquidation of a company takes a long time, you probably have to wait at least a few months before we can see if anybody has finally got the rights to the Amiga technology. The only way to end all misery fast is to pay off all debts so the court has nothing to whine about, but these must be over 100 million dollars... 'Plees, Meester, got sum spare change?' Bummer. Samsung has enough money, and Pleasane says he has too. So things ought to work out soon, if nobody's lying here and if the Bahamian court procedures start working a bit faster. It's all very unclear what's happening, keep an eye on the British magz, coz these are well-informed thanx to David Pleasance, the British directing manager of C= in the UK. Don't believe any of these silly BBS-spread rumours and keep on scenin'... That's all. Dutchie / C D S Rumour Update: Sum idiot told me that the European subsidiaries had been put out of business by C= America to get rid of the 100 million debt. And that it'll be till januari 1995 before we'll have a operating A1200 plant. And one of my more well-informed press-contax (impressive eh?) revealed that Commodore UK had the highest bid on Amiga technology. Now the other parties (Samsung and maybe some other companies) might bid more dosh for the Amiga, so it might last months on end. Also, a 'secret partner' is helping out Commodore UK to buy C=. And German PC producers Escom have a bid in it now too. What would happen if a PC company would own Amiga? I wouldn't even dare to think of it. True Lies by Dutchie My, oh my. Don't get upset by what you all hear about C=, but we have collected a few REAL, TRUE facts here: What will happen if.... ...If David Pleasance of C= Europe gets what he wants: the full rights to the Amiga technology. - C= will die. Amiga will remain. Amiga is what sells, so the C= trademark will be on it's way out. - Amigas will be manufactured in Britain. Thus the prize will rise quite a bit, coz wages are a bit higher over here. - All Amigas will come with software packs in Europe, because that's what they've done for years in Britain. - AAA won't come out the next few years. AAA could be ready within one year, but there's no AmiDos capabale of running it. Couldn't they have told that straight away? - Within 6 months after Pleasance has got C=, a custom-designed RISC processor for the Amiga will be finished. - Within 12 months after that, the new RISC technology will be implemented in the Amiga. - An Amiga 64-bit Risc CD console.... (Hmm, what do they have there at C=, a cristal ball?) What we'll notice of it: - No AGA machines available for Christmas, except for a pack of A4000's. - No AAA for years to come! ...If C= America has kept the rights to the Amiga - All our hard-earned money will be used to pay the big bosses... - Amigas will be manufactured in countries where the wages are low... - No proper advertisement, like always. - Maybe AAA? ...If Samsung wins... - Haven't the faintest idea... Dutchie / C D S FileMaster AGA update due for Januari? Just a month ago, I wrote a letter to the dude that had written FileMaster, 'coz I wanted an AGA version. A month or so later, I received a letter back telling me that there will be a 3.0 based version within 2, 3 months... Although he told me 2.2 was the newest(?) version available, he did send me an .lha file. So I unarced it, just to find sumthing inside that happened to be a patch for sum old F1GP game (not that Microprose thang) and sum texts. Me being a curious chap, always reads da texts. Well, for somebody to write something that good as FileMaster it's clear that he might have relations to the scene. And he has, he's a scener himself, as Multiplex / Chrome lives at da same address as he does. Well, I thought, I'd love to see FileMaster grow into the best thing available, so I wrote back again, offering to do the Localization for the Dutch language and maybe even translate the manual in Dutch. (In return for a free version!) As the dox in the G1FP patch file were full of little errors, I also offered to check his English. I had asked him if Filemaster could do Anims too, but he didn't want to make a build-in function to do so, because FileMaster would become too big. But he promised that using an external program it would work out. Hurray! Now you all are good people. You think paying $20 is much for a util that beats the shit out of DOpus in terms of size (it's smaller) and speed (it's faster!) and costing ya almost nothing? Updates on the matter will follow soon! Dutchie / C D S A1200 HD Options The A1200 has more and cheaper HD options than the A500. The A600 has both the internal 2.5" HD slot and the external PCMCIA-slot, that like the A1200 allow harddrives to be fitted. On the A1200 there's the added option of SCSI HD's and possibly even Parallel SCSI HD's. These are the options from cheap to expensive: .1 A 3.5" drive fitted on the 2.5" slot using an external power supply .2 A 3.5" Overdrive fitted on the Pcmcia port (only cheaper than 2.5" if more than 210 MB!) Requires a small adaptor, like for a walkman. .3 A 2.5" drive fitted on the 2.5" slot. No PSU required. .4 A SCSI drive fitted from the parallel port using a Paradox cable. .5 A SCSI drive via a cable that can be reached from the little trapdoor next to the mouse (A1200). Requires a turbo-board with SCSI-II connection. A 3.5" drive Cheap they are, 2nd hand or even new 3.5" IDE-AT harddisks. 16-bit devices: they are not the fastest, but certainly the cheapest you can get. Because the device works via the CPU, it isn't very fast an because it isn't 32-bit it doesn't work faster if you have fastmem. Fitting a drive of this size will mean you'll have to open the computer and do some mayor re-designing inside of the machine. This totally invalidates the warranty on your machine and if you are not very handy with electronix, 'it might invalidate you', like iCE always quotes from da Amiga Shopper mag. If you're attempting to do this on a new Amiga, be sure you know it doesn't have failures of it's own. You won't be able to bring the machine back after you attempted to wreck the thing like described here. Needless to say, if the machine blows up in your face if you open it up, we won't take any responsibility. You are allowed to write in to our letter's page, if you do destroy your Ami. Hee hee! To have a 3.5" drive work, you require at least a 2.5" to 3.5" cable. This ensures that you can connect the drive. Next, you'll need power. If you have a proper PSU fitted on your Amiga, you can use a cable you usually get with the HD cable to adapt some power from the Internal diskdrive and lead it to the HD. If your powersupply can't cope and/or the 3.5" HD spins up too slowly to work, you need an external powersupply that activates the drive, before you put on the computer. If the drive is halfway in initialising and the computer is already on, nothing will happen. So you'll need a extra powersupply. Like Cody has done, you can buy a cheap 2nd-hand pc PSU and power the HD from that. If after a computer reset the drive isn't able to get back soon enough to be auto-configed, you'll need to cut the 'reset'-wire of the HD lead. This is the wire with red dots on it, so you can hardly miss. This will also save the HD from wear and tear from having to slow down and accelerate each reset. Next you'll also need a HD-tool that can install WB3.0 and partition the drive for you. Usually you'll get a pirate version with any 3.5" kit for your Amiga, but well, C= hasn't sued any dealers doing the same thing yet. If you partition the drive, it's wise to have two or max. three partitions. If you have four or more, every time the computer is resetted ALL available partitions are read like plain diskdrives. If you also have two diskdrives, the computer has to identify six devices each time, slowing it down considerably during startup. If your drive works properly now, it's time to build it into the machine. First remove that little tray were the 2.5" drive fits into. That gives you a lot of space. If the thing doesn't fit yet, cut through most of the anti-interference shielding, which is that stuff that covers most of the chips. Also remember to stay off the chips and touch the internal drive first. This helps (a bit) to prevent ESD (electrostatical damage) if you do touch any circuitry. If you remove the shielding, interference may occur on nearby TV's and radio's, but if you have cable-TV/Radio it doesn't matter that much. I never had any trouble with it. Do make sure if you remove anything, the drive won't get in contact with any of our Ami's parts. You can use rubber (or a cut-up mousemat) to prevent the drive from making contact and making too much noise. It will make more noise than a 2.5", but that's logical, it is bigger, not? If you are handy and you have a tray for it, you can also try to fit your drive externally. Do be careful not to have the drive slip of the wire in mid-action, as we can't tell you what will happen then to your toast. Simply cut out a piece of the housing of your Ami, allowing the HD lead to pass through. A 3.5" Overdrive PCMICA HD Making 1.5 MB/s easily, this is a nice and cosy option for the not-so-technical people, like me for instance. You can also use this as a 2nd drive, next to an internal 2.5". An Overdrive without drive costs you about $100-$125 and you can fit most 3.5" drives in it. If you buy less than 210 MB, the 2,5" drive is even cheaper, atlhough not faster. PCMCIA is 16-bit, so the speed difference is to be found in the Overdrive controller, which must be faster. The PCMCIA is that port on the left on your Amiga. You do need to buy a seperate adaptor unit prized around $5-$10, which can be bought at most electronix stores. Using the initialising software (exactly the 2.5" one) you can then partition it and so on. In practice, I noticed some earlier units had problems, but I guess they fixed it by now, as I don't know anyone with problems with 'em. A 2.5" drive Simply fit it in the 2.5" tray, connect the 2,5" lead from the HD to the computer (If the leads fits in two ways: fit it so the wire seems under least tension, this usually is correct then... I hope). C= dealers usually partitioned it and formatted it, so you won't need to do anything, except use a program to scan the drive and make sure no errors are on the HD. If there are, get yar money back pronto! Seagates will go about 350KB/s and Conners 700KB/s. (This was tested on a 40 MB Seagate and 80 MB Conner, but we believe the drive size hasn't anything to do with it...) A Par SCSI drive SCSI doesn't only allow HD's, but also a whole badge of other drives to be connected. The advantage is speed. But now there's the paralel SCSI-cable called Paradox. It's 75 Dm in Germany, RRP 250 DM in the Netherlands and sold for 125DM. Now if that ain't confusing. But the question is: does it pay off? I saw it reviewed and it was said to work, allright. But what about the speed you'd think? Well, that's what I thought, but it wasn't in any review. My best guess is that it's slow like hell. So there you are. A SCSI-II adaptor Most accelerator boards offer a SCSI-II as optional adaptor. The board may set you back over $500 or more, the SCSI contoller will cost another $100-$200. This does ensure you have a controller that works best with the accelerator board's abilities, I'd think. The SCSI drives are very expensive too, but if they are rEAl fast, like over 11MB/s fast, you'll get truly astonishing possibilities. RT movies playing from the HD without any previous compression. Together with a 16-bit sampler you'll be able to do miracles with the right software. Anyway, see the article on accelerator boards for more info. The installation is simple. Plug in the board, plug in the SCSI-II module. Push the SCSI-lead under the internal diskdrive to the little trapdoor that's next to the mouseport and presto, you have a SCSI port right were all the other ports are. Now you can connect any SCSI device (providing you have a case for it) and have fun. The required software handlers to setup the drive usually come with the drive, so be sure you get that too. Next to the speed, there's versatility. SCSI-II has so much more options than IDE, it's astonishing. Hard Drivin' Dutchie / C D S A1200 Accelerator Boards It's 1987 all over again... A new machine and third-party manufacturers jump on the new market... of A1200-peripherals. And especially the ones that you can fit through the expansion port. Extremely easy to fit, you require just enough technological knowledge to open up the lid positioned under your computer. But this time it's even worse. Back then, a board that would just fit into the expansion slot would contain half a meg of memory and a clock. Now you can get boards that are just a bit bigger and contain 8 MB or more, FPU, CoCPU and ofcourse a clock. Then on some boards there's room for an additional SCSI-II expansion, 16-bit sampler, video digitizer or whatever... Because the possible combinations vary from board to board, it's hard to say which one will fit your needs now and in the future. Memory What most people want from a expansion board is extra memory. Because most boards use SIMM memory modules, you can only choose between 1,2,4 or 8 MB. So if you by one with 1MB and find you need another one, you'll have to get rid of the 1MB first. If you have an Amiga with Chip-only, in terms of speed it doesn't matter much if you have an A500 or an A4000. Because the custom chips access the memory slower than the processor can, the processor has to wait for Agnus, Alice and the rest of 'em to finish doin' their stuff before it can resume processing. The memory on the expansion card is fastmem and will not be usd by the custom chips. This will greatly improve performance on programs that are put in fast, because the processor can access the program without having to wait for the custom chips. Only, on a plain 1200 this extra spurt of speed is only to be noticed on 60ns chips. Very cheap boards that use old Zipps, like the ones found on the A500 aren't actually fastram. Like most people call it, it's slow ram. The difference between SIMMS and Zipps is simple. The zipps are small chips, soldered on the board or placed in sockets usually in groups of 8 for half a meg of memory. The SIMMS consist of flat chips integrated on long prints, whcih are held onto the board in clamps. You can easily remove and insert the SIMM modules, because they aren't soldered to the board. Zipps are 16-bit, thus not any faster on 32-bit proc based machines as the 1200. If you'd buy your SIMMS seperately, you might get in trouble when using 9-bit modules. These are meant for use with the pc, which wants another bit that in fact doesn't have any other use than to check if the other 8 are set correctly. Or so I was told. Anyway, some people get away with it, but it isn't advised to blow your Ami with pc-SIMMS. If you buy a board that has 8MB, remember you can't use the PCMCIA and the 8MB at once. The expansion port ought not to be used for more than 4 MB, but by addressing the extra 4MB at the PCMCIA port, illegally it is allowed to have 8 MB of 32-bit ram. If you then would add an Overdrive or other PCMCIA based peripheral things will screw up bigtime. I don't know what happens then, but in the best case one of the two (the Overdrive or the board) refuses to work. Usually the software that comes with the 8MB board has softtware-based tools to deactivate the last 4MB (or the whole board) to allow the PCMCIA-port to work. In fact there are boards (like that cool one of GVP) with extra Procs that can allow upto 128MB(!) of memory without using the PCMCIA adress space. You can also buy a credit-card memory expansion of 1,2 or 4 MB for the PCMCIA expansion port. This is not adviced, as these cards are relatviely expensive and not very fast, because this port can only allow 16-bit througput. Thus making it not significantly faster than the chipram. Next to that, this memory module is powered by a battery, which has to be replaced once a year. Which costs money, although nobody has yet said how much. For memory, the best and cheapest way to expand is to buy a SIMM-based board, if properly installed, make your A1200 over twice as fast if it concerns program execution. GigaByte? If you want to run heavy programs that consume loads of memory, keep in mind you can't have more than 2MB Chip and 8MB Fast on a standard Amiga. There are two ways to increase your memory capacity... One way is to use Virtual Memory. You need a extra processor ('030 or better) that has a MMU (Memory Management Unit) fitted. Processors that have 'EC' or 'LC' in it, like the A1200's 68EC20, don't have a MMU. Using the MMU, the processor can use the harddisk as memory. You will then need a MMU-program, like GigaMem, but I suppose you'll get it together with the board. The other way is to buy a processor that can allocate memory the standard 68EC20 can't reach. Or so I've heared. These CPUs can access 128MB. Well, if that ain't enough, what is! You do need a board that has enough space to fit more than 8MB, which I haven't seen yet. ClockWork Banana Next, you'll need a clock. This is very handy, as you then can see in a glance wether you edited a file recently, or which of two versions of a program is the newest one. Every serious user should have one. One nasty thing though may be that some viruses can be activated by the clock, but any proper viruschecker should be able to rid you from these nasties. Floating Point Units There are many different FPU's available. Best buys are the 68882's and 68883's. These offer best perormance, against the now slightly aged 68881. The main use of the FPU is for a huge spurt of speed on rendering programs like Imagine and Lightwave. The speed in MHz varies from around 12 to 50. There are however illegally accelerated FPU's. I have a '882 FPU that runs at 28 Mhz. OFficialy, these do not exist, but the people that sold the board put a faster type of oscilator on the board to increase the speed of the FPU. Although nobody can tell you if these kind of accelerated FPU's still work after a three-day rendering session... Co Processors This is even worse than having to choose a FPU. Usually there's advertised with: 'Faster than an A4000' or 'Twice as fast as an A4000'. You do have to remember that these adverts usually concern the A4000/030, which is four times as slow as a '040 based A4000. I'm no expert on the matter, but I do know one recomendation: The Blizzard 1220. This board has been sold out since it hit the shops here! It costs as much as a 4MB memory expansion, only it also features an extra 68EC20 at 14 Mhz. Together witht the Amiga's own processor, it makes fastram- ased programs four times as fast. On top of all, all programs that work on a 68EC20, will also work with the board. Prize: About DM 550.- Optional is an FPU of any existing type. As a board with just 4MB costs more than that, why don't have the Blizzard and 4 times da normal speed instead! Errmm... I heared something about a 68EC30 board at 25 Mhz for DM 650,- Which can be true, as the EC30's are very cheap... Check a good dealer for that... For the last word in faaast upgrades there are: The CSA 12-gauge. This board is providing you with warp speed! It's said to be going twice as fast as the A4000/40, so it must have '040 on 50 Mhz. These chips alone cost almost 1,000 DM, so with the 50Mhz FPU, 4 MB and optional SCSI-II expansion it'll go well over the 2,000 DM. The GVP upgrades have a '040 on 50 or 40Mhz, an FPU at 50 and upto 8 MB. Together with SCSI-II, 16-bit sampling option and (in the future) video-stuff you'll have to rob a bank to be able to pay for it. It does have place for 32 MB of memory, just what you need to get something like Lightwave to run properly on your A1200! Check your local Amiga dealer for prizes. If you want the max out of your Ami, this is it! One last remark: a CoPro isn't in fact a CoPro, but a CPU replacement. A 1220 Blizzard has a 28 MHz 68EC20, thus you're processing power is just doubled, not tripled and the added advantage of Fast ram will make you're computer four times as fast as before, not five. SCSI & SCSI-II SCSI was the standard on most Amiga's before C= decided a cheap IDE interface was enough for lower market machines. The advantage of IDE is that you had much cheaper harddisks available. The disadvantage is that IDE is slow, doesn't use DMA (Direct Memory Access) and can't handle more than 1 or 2 devices attached to it. If you want a turbo harddrive to fit your turbo Amiga, you want SCSI. SCSI-II is the new standard and offers speeds of well over 10 MB / s. Because the SCSI-controller can access the memory itself and doesn't need the processor to do so, the processor isn't slowed down during disk operations. Even for a 40MB IDE drive like I have it's a pain to scan it for errors or repair it. Using SCSI-II a 500MB SCSI-II drive can be scanned in a matter of minutes. Next to that, SCSI can support 8 peripherals to be added like Removable Media drives, Optical drives, MiniDisc drives, CD drives and ofcourse Harddrives. This is more expensive than IDE, but that much more quicker and more reliable, it's worth it's cost for all professional users. A last note on SCSI-II: these speeds are hardly ever achieved. Some controllers don't have DMA and some drives are plainly slow. Dutchie / C D S Last Note: Lately somebody offered me a wad of cash for my 4MB fastmem expansion. So I sold it with a huge profit as I bought it 2nd-hand (Look up 'Diary of a Dealer' in Psycho #1!) but now I actually understand why a fast machine works better. When I had FastMem, MagicWB icons in the WB appeared at quite a decent speed, but now they're slow... Don't underestimate the FastRam, Luke! How to Build a Clock Cody would have had the blueprints by now, if only the chap who promised to build the thing wouldn't have been that lazy... Darn, our whole hardware issue down da drain!Build yar Own Midi Interface! If you or one of your friends has a cool synth lying someplace, build this and get a Midi Package such as MusicX or Bars&Pipes. I didn't got the latter working, but MusicX is really as simple as anything. This Midi circuitry differs from most that it has a led on-board flashing if you press a key on the synth. The circuitry design is taken from an issue of CU Amiga Fiesta had lying around somewhere. So if your Ami blows, beat them up, not us. Just to be on the safe side. You need resistors, semi-conductors, circuitry board and if you want to get things right, get a small case from any ordinary electronix hobby shop. You'll need ofcourse insulated wire and your soldering tools and a 25-pin male plug for the Serial port. Midi leads and two Midi plugs. Here are some IDs: Resistors (All 0.25 Watt) Semi-Conductors R1 150 Ohm TR1 2N2905 PNP (or BC177/8/9 if you must) R2 390 Ohm TR2 BC107 NPN (or similar) R3 390 Ohm IC1 Opto Isolator CYN17 (or equivalent) R4 10K Ohm = 10,000 Ohm D1 A coloured led! (any) R5 390 Ohm R6 390 Ohm And... R7 3K9 Ohm = 3,900 Ohm IC socket Plugs Midi Leads Casing 25-pin male D-type ser.plug A Synth Midi 8 (or 6) pin. A Midi Program Soldering Stuff While making the diagram, I noticed one mistake in the design. Because there was a photo of a working model next to the diagram, I saw that one connection had been taken over the wrong way. This photo was placed 'coz the person who made the diagram wasn't very confident wether he done it right. Lucky us. Because of the toilet paper CU is printed on, I can't be sure either. So I've shown two options: our way, or CU's way. Anyway, have fun blowing your machine if you take a wrong turn. I have also added a detailed info sheet about the IC, so you might be able to figure out what the most logical connection is. If you have any hard info, let us know! Mr Zwijn, a more technical person than me said he trusted the photo (my way) better than the diagram. Because I ain't the most technical kind of person, I just showed both options. I think this project wasn't meant for other people than just those tech wizzes, 'coz there's really very little explaination or help. Like 'Well, because there were no transistors like the one I originally wanted to use, I used another. Now you go and find out how to fit one.' or 'If you use long leads, resistor 7's value may need to be altered slightly'. Altered? Up or Down? Luckily I had had some physics theory on electronics, so I think that the longer wire gives more resistance, thus we need a less heavy resistor, but otherwise I wouldn't have known what to do. I'm planning to make this little interface, but sadly I hadn't had the time to do so, before publishing. So if anything blows, just beat this CU idiot up, not us. If I get lucky, I might find a brand-new boxed Roland E86 lyin' on my doorstep tomorrow. Dream on dudes! Dutchie Notice that because of a problem with the interpreter, the Iff file is not included in the mag, so load it from disk using FileMaster or Dpaint if you must. How to Build a Sampler Cody would have had the blueprints by now, if only the chap who promised to build the thing wouldn't have been that lazy... Darn, our whole hardware issue down da drain! How to build a 4-player adaptor! Yes, and it's even easier than you'd think! You need: 2× 25-pin male plugs (those things that fit on the paralel port) 2× 9-threaded insulated leads 1× You trusty soldering iron This tip I got of the Amiga Club Hoorn's errrmmm... I guess he was with the people that produced their mag... Anyway, this is a truly great tip: Put one plug in the Paralel port. Now put the back side of the other to the backside of the first. Remove the pins from the one that isn't in the port like this: o o o o o - - - o o o o o - NoPin! o o o o - - - - o o o o o YoPin! Now here fit excactly two sticks. If you then connect all used, opposing pins from the first plug to the other (do remove the thing from the par-port FIRST would ya!) then things should work out. Dynablaster with 5 players is as much fun as... dynablaster with 5 players! Anyway, it may come in handy one day. If yar done, glue both plugs backsides to eachother and you're errmm... done! Dutchie / C D S Here are some figures on some interestung crunching utils! Empty Byte Word Long SineB SineL Mod! Powerpacker 5,372 5,636 - 76,904 24,640 - 695,480 Stonecracker 424 688 - 78,832 9,796 - 676,836 Lha 60 725 - 63,867 19,497 91,061 612,216 Size 100,000............................... 801,164 bytes PP 94.6% 94.4% 0.0% 23.1% 75.4% - DIY! STC 99.6% 99.3% 0.0% 21.2% 90.2% - LHA 100.0% 99.3% 0.0% 36.1% 80.5% 8.4% These figures are without 'header'... presumably these headers will be 4 bytes, though Lha adds much fileinfo to the file. For auto-executable files there's need for much larger headers, because this header also has to call the decrunching routines. Empty1......... file is filled with 100,000 zeros Empty2......... file is filled with 100,000 $FF values. Linear Byte.... file is made up from a linear function of byte values increased by 1 each time. Linear Word.... id, but now word values are increased by 17. Funny is that none of the crunchers could handle this! Linear Long.... id, but longword values which are increased by 123. Sine Byte...... Radian sine values: Amp 0->255. -> Sin(X/100.0)*255 Note that stonecracker managed to crunch this very well. Sine Long...... id, but sine values Amp=0->2^32. Only Lha managed to crunch it slightly. Mod!.,,,....... An enourmouse module send to me by Cody, named TerraPromesa or sumtin'. It's that Italian dude again, squeeling down da mike... Anyway, it was hard to crunch stuff... We haven't included any further 'Word' length tests, because it wouldn't help much, none of the crunchers succeeded in crunching it some way. Maybe something to radically improve crunching software? We'll see... As the crunchers have such a hard time on 16-bit (=Word) values, what will happen if we get standard 16-bit sound here? Samples are hard to crunch, but these won't crunch at all! Also watch out for percentages quoted by crunchers: PowerPacker tends to round upwards x.5% figures, while StoneCracker always rounds decimals after the dot to 0. This results in PP sometimes says to crunch better than STC in percentages, while in bytes it has crunched less. The numbers quoted here are rounded using the official method. I thought I could fool most of these crunchers by using 'difficult' formulas like a sine curve, but especially STC proved me to be wrong. I could have done so many more tests, but STC is simply to fast & efficient to ignore. In practice, LHA is very efficient, albeit that it can't do much for auto-executable stuff and it's damned slow. Now the packing ratio's aren't too important: if you have unlimited amounts of time to pack something, you can come up with real good crunchers. StoneCracker managed to decrunch (and crunch) really fast and has the best ratios I've seen around. It doesn't have flashing pointers/screens as an option to show decrunching is busy, so my best guess is that Mr. Spiv thought his cruncher to be that fast it went by unnoticed. I also heared that Stc is at the heart of the Disk Expander utility, which crunches/decrunches files realtime, to save diskspace. I do like to see a Arexx Port for STC, then I wouldn't have had to recrunch all my harddisk files with STC manually. Stonecracker Jan '94, version 4.x or sumtin... Powerpacker 4.3... erm, this is rather old! '92-ish... Lha: sum old 'un I found in iCE's diskdrawer Hmm, I haven't seen any newer versions of PowerPacker lately, and I got this one from a very reliable source. Well, as far as I know Stonecracker is the winner. I stuck Lha in there for kixx, and for da mailbomb terrorists... Stonecracker does need an external stc020.library. I don't know if this means it won't run on anything but 68020+ or so, but it sure is fast. Stonecracker does have one bug though, it can crash some programs crunched with Stc and sometimes it crashes itself while quitting from the program. Maybe something to do with opening and closing the stc020.library. Packin' "Crunch! Crunch!" Dutchie / C D S Do It Yarself Project #5-7 The Art of Fakin' Stamp Yep, ya all know there's one way to fake stamps. Use da glue or furnish on da stamp, and ya can recycle da stamp, sending off stuff again and again. Ya then have yar contact send back da stamps and throw da stamps in a can of water for hours to get them cum of da bloody envelope. Diz' way of fakin' stamp is senseless crap. There are much more efficient ways that require less work and less truble. Ya require: Adhesive Plastic Envelope Pen #5. Use Plastic Coatin' on da Stamp + Envelope Simplee use transparent, adhesive plastic on both da envelope and stamps. I love to use a 'C' sized envelope with plastic bubbles in da thing to prevent damage done by pressure or low temperatures. I put on enuff stamps for 12 disx. I then put on da envelope sum stuff to impress Mr Postman, like printouts saying 'EliteWare Int.' or if I feel really smart 'FreePost NL' and then put da coatin' on da envelope 'n stuff. The advantage is that I can even recycle da envelope and simply rub off da postmark in notime. The disadvantage is that if you've been caught before, this an even more obvious thing for Mr Postdude to beat ya up with his mates. And it won't work unless you and your contax live in the same country. Using sum tape you can make the envelope in such a way it seems taped shut, but instead it's taped onto plastic so ya can open it very easily. Also, tape the adress on the front, so it can be easily removed and be send back to you with a new address on it. #6. Use a 'Port Payed' stamp. Port payed stamps are used by da companies that need to send off extreme quantities of post. They place a reference text on the letter so that the post office knows who's going to cough up the dosh. Even without this reference I could send off mail to the town I live in, the whole nation and even to foreign countrees without one problem. As a reference I could use my school's one. I've received mail of 'em with a port payed stamp, so the teacher's are right, school might come in handy one day. To get a Port Payed stamp, get in touch with a friend who works at the post office, or try a local store that has stuff for in da office. Needless to say, you'll need sum sort o' ink too. The Art of faking stamp and not be caught I constantly hear of people bein' bust by da Post office. How come? Because you send of too many letters, that's what. I usually send 10 disx at once and then not more than once a month. This will prevent the Postman from getting wary of your letters and save your friends an awful lot of trouble. Another thing is: never go to a postoffice. Certainly not if you use DIY projects #5 'n #6. I dunno about other places, but here in Holland you can throw your mail into sum red or blue letterbox which is emptied once a day by the postdude. If the address is printed and you don't write your name or address all over da envelope, disk or even on the disk, you can't be tracked down, or they might have sum pitbulls smell da disk or so or yar contact busts ya. Which I find rather unlikely. Or did ya send him Psycho Iz #1? The first time I contact a dude, I use faked stamps the normal way and inform him of fakin' using adhesive plastic. The next time we don't need to write down return adresses anywhere, so who's gonna trace us? If you really are scared of bein' caught, let post send to you be send under another name. If the postprick comes harassing you about faked stamps, you simply tell him you never met the dude which the letters where adressed to and somebody kept sending you strange stuff like computer disx... Heehee! Should see da face of that twerp. Dutchie / C D S LeetleNote: The Dutch Post lately managed to get in the papers because of little companees that had post send for free using other comapnies references. Like the possibility of phoning and have somebody else pay for it, the post branch of Dutch communications giant KPN denied all possibilities of fraud using mail. Mickey Revisited Mickey, about whom we wrote in Ish #1 isn't the only rodent that keeps buggin' me. I have been the proud owner of a whole batch of mice, especially those that connect to my Amiga. I'm not famous for my strength, but every mouse I had didn't last very long. Except for the one I had with my A500. Those were the days, an unbreakable mouse, an unbreakable computer. I believe my A500 dropped of the table ten times at least... And it all worked fine, until Fiesta came along with some of his idiotic friends, who broke the mouse. And I broke their legs... but that didn't help much. First I bought a 'Fancy' Mouse which fell on the floor three times and didn't survived that. Then I got a reeel cheap 3-button mouse of which the left button came of, and there was only 1 left button and two right buttons... Then I got my A1200 and I was happy having a sturdy Commodore mouse again... Or so I thought, but it came with a real crummy mouse. It was well-designed, like the 1200, but it wasn't very strong. It survived falling of the table twice, but after less than 6 months it started to get 'less sensitive' on the left button. That means I can click, but the mouse won't react. So I have to push harder after I hear the click. Which will result in breaking the button because it has to take a lot of stress and then I have to buy new mice again... So I took the screwdriver and attempted to open up my mouse. Errmm... there weren't any screws in this mouse! I got really upset by this, so I tried to open up the thang by levering the screwdriver between two plastic parts... Me being a sort of untechnical person, had tried this strategy before on several occations... I can recall stuff breaking apart, so I stopped it. But I did managed to mutilate the whole mouse... Then I took my knife and cut off the plastic that had partly come off. I sure should have taken the optional 'plastic(al) surgery '-course at elementary school, 'coz the mouse looked like a sum gamelamers' mouse, all ugly and dirty... Shitty mouse! Isn't there anyone out there that can find a old, proper C= mouse for me? One that works? Or does anyone know of a shop that has proper mice? And can anyone tell me how to open up this damned A1200 mouse? It's the newer model, not that hunchbacked one that they put on early A1200's... Write Psycho! Dutchie / C D S Oh dear... another Dutch article... We'll be sorry someday... Bob's Bad Day Bob klom uit bed en liep naar het raam. Hij hoorde het geblaf van de hond. Ondanks dat hij de hond niet kon zien, was het het onmiskenbare gekerm van het mormel van de buren. Bob schoof het raam open en stak zijn hoofd naar buiten. Zijn haren in de war, licht bewegend in de wind. Hij dacht aan zijn moeder, die was gestorven toen hij veertien was levensjaar. Bob voelde hoe zijn slapen begonnen te kloppen. Hij voelde de spanning in zijn hoofd toenemen. Zijn handen begonnen te trillen. Door het open raam keek hij naar boven. "Meneer Parkinson, ga van het dak af!" gilde Bob, toch al enigzins geïrriteerd door dat rare gevoel in zijn hoofd. Hij schrikte op van het geluid van het raam naast hem, dat open werd geschoven. Het was Buurman. Buurman keek naar Bob. "Zeg es Bob, waar zijn we nu helemaal mee bezig, Bob...? Ga ieman anders effe lastig valle zes uur in de morrege... mafketel!" Bob was nogal verward van het ruige taalgebruik van Buurman. Buurman riep hem nog iets na, maar Bob knalde het raam al met een klap dicht. Hij hoorde een dof geluid van iets dat viel op het plaveisel en hij besefte te laat dat het vast zijn gouden Rolex was die zojuist nog in het raamkozijn lag. Bob kleedde zich snel aan en rende de krakende trap af naar beneden. Ook al was de zon al opgekomen was het nog naargeestig donker door de dichte mist die zich op de stad had geworpen. In het zwakke schijnsel van een van de klassiek aandoende lantarenpalen die aan beide zijdes van de straat voor verlichting zorgden begon Bob te zoeken naar zijn horloge. Bob speurde rond in het halfdonker, maar behalve een kapotte bloempot lag er niets onder het raam. Buurman zat achter het raam en lachtte naar Bob. Maar niet zoals zijn moeder vroeger deed, zo vriendelijk, toen ze nog leefde. Buurman woonde samen met zijn twee zoons. Omdat Buurman nogal weinig thuis was, had hij weinig controle op ze. Om de week was het wel weer raak, of iemand begon zijn kamer te verbouwen om elf uur 's avonds, of iemand trok midden in de nacht de elektrische gitaar uit de kast. Om dan nog maar te zwijgen over het ergste probleem, die hond die soms tot drie uur 's morgens aan een stuk kon blijven janken en blaffen. Pas nog was de oudste van hen zover gegaan om een voetbal op Bob's balkon te schoppen. Bob had toen meteen de kans aangepakt om in een serieus gesprek met Buurman flink wat kritiek te uitten op het gedrag van zijn kinderen. Maar blijkbaar werd Bob niet serieus genomen, want dezelfde dag nog werd Bob's neefje Alfons recht in het gezicht geschoten met een bal. Bob, die toevallig net de voordeur uitliep zag ze nog wegrennen. Kleine Alfons verhelderde de zaak nog met: "Brillie heeft het gedaan!" Bob zette de achtervolging in en ondanks dat de twee niet in een doodlopende weg terecht waren gekomen waren ze brutaal genoeg om terug te lopen en de confrontatie aan te gaan. Bob had de grootste moeite niet te gaan slaan, want die ene met die bril durfde nog te beweren dat hij het niet met opzet had gedaan en dat het Alfons eigen schuld was. "Zal ik jou eens een bal in je gezicht schoppen!" had Bob gezegd. Blijkbaar was Bril niet onder de indruk want hij kon slechts met moeite zijn lachen inhouden. Bob stond al met zijn hand klaar toen iemand anders ook al beweerde dat Alfons in de weg liep. En zelfs nog sterker: niet Alfons, maar iemand anders kreeg de bal recht in het gezicht en Alfons werd slechts geschampt. Bob had het maar moeilijk in deze buurt. Als electricien bijna afgeschreven, was het vandaag zijn laatste kans op een baantje. Hij had van het plaatselijke uitzendbureau te horen gehad dat er een vacature was als controleur bij een servicebedrijf aan de andere kant van het land, het liefst iemand met ervaring. Die had hij, alleen was hij nagenoeg de hele nacht wakker gehouden door dat vreselijke kabaal bij Buurman. Het was zelfs zo erg dat hij zich met moeite zich kon bedwingen zijn handgranaat te pakken en die voor de deur van Buurman te werpen. De granaat, die zijn vader, toen hij nog leefde, uit Duitsland had meegenomen als een aandenken aan de jaren in de munitiefabrieken, verkeerde nog steeds in een goede staat. Was het voor zijn vader een aandenken aan de oorlog, voor Bob was het een aandenken aan zijn vader. Bob at wat en nu was het toch al snel zeven uur. Bob trok zijn donkere regenjas aan en pakte een hoed van zijn vader. Toen hij in de spiegel keek zag hij dat de hoed en regenjas nagenoeg zijn hele gestalte verborgen. Hij bleef zichzelf even aanstaren, waarna hij stilletjes de voordeur open deed en naar buiten stapte. Bob liep naar zijn auto, een oud wrak, maar het reed. De banden waren niet leeg. Bob keek naar de verdieping boven die waar hij woonde, waar meneer Parkinson vroeger gewoond had. Meneer Parkinson was een gepensioneerd militair met een voorkeur voor klassieke muziek, en dan vooral de luidere variaties. Na het ongeluk van meneer Parkinson heeft Bob zijn sabel gevonden, lag gewoon op de gang. Gelukkig dat Bob het had gevonden, anders was het misschien gewoonweg bij het grofvuil gezet. Hij stapte in de auto en keek langs de huizen in de straat. Het was een normale werkdag en in de meeste huizen brandde al licht. Bob reed naar de kruising tussen de straat waar hij woonde en de straat die naar het park leidde. Eenmaal daar wachtte hij geduldig in de geparkeerde auto aan de rand van het park. Het was mistig, door het hek dat het groen omringde was alleen nog een schimmige wereld zichtbaar. Na dik een kwartier kwam Buurman aangelopen, met de hond. De hond uiteraard niet aangelijnd, maar wie is Buurman nu om zich daar aan te storen. Terwijl Buurman in de richting van het park liep, startte Bob de auto en reed stilletjes achter Buurman aan. De hond, een klein mormel, een stoffig keffertje bleef bij een oude eikeboom staan met zijn poot omhoog. Buurman's gestalte werd als een schim en leek langzaam in de lichte mist op te lossen. De hond die nu klaar was zou achter zijn baas aangerend zijn, als zijn aandacht niet gevestigd zou wezen op het onhoorbare fluitje waar Bob op blies. De hond liep in de richting van de fluittoon en eenmaal dichtbij genoeg zag hij Bob zitten en begon te keffen. Bob accelereerde en slingerde wild over de linkerhelft van de weg, waarbij hij net niet de controle over het stuur verloor. Bob voelde niet eens een hobbel, en terwijl hij de auto probeerde te keren zag hij Buurman al weer uit de mist komen aanlopen, natuurlijk omdat hij zich afvroeg waar zijn hond zo lang bleef. Bob reed snel weg en had niet eens tijd meer om te zien hoe het met de hond was. Het was slechts zo'n vierhonderd meter naar huis en eenmaal aangekomen stapte Bob uit, pakte een doek uit zijn jaszak en wreef de bumper en de carroserie schoon. Bob ging binnen zitten en zette een stevige bak koffie. Het was slechts enkele minuten later dat Buurman met een rood hoofd aan kwam lopen, zonder hond. Weer was er rumoer bij de buren, maar na enige tijd stopte het al weer snel. Bob genoot van de rust, zonder meneer Parkinson, zonder vader, zonder moeder en zonder hond. Bob was net terug van zijn solicitatiegesprek. Hetzelfde verhaal als anders: "u hoort nog van ons." Hoe woorden hun waarde kunnen verliezen. Bob wist dat hij de ervaring had, maar zijn ontslag op psychische gronden bij zijn laatste werkgever heeft een stempel op zijn verder carriere gedrukt. Hij keek naar buiten, hoorde hoe Buurman en de deur uit ging en zag hoe hij onderzoekend rond Bob's auto liep. Bob vroeg zich af, wat er zou wezen. Net toen hij dacht dat Buurman weg was gegaan, ging de bel. Bob voelde zich vreemd. Adrenaline stroomde door zijn lichaam, voortgepompt door zijn sneller kloppend hart. Hij stapte naar de deur en hij ontspande zich volkomen toen hij de deur voor Buurman open deed. "Hallo Bob!" groette Buurman Bob en voordat Bob wat terug kon zeggen begon Buurman zijn verhaal. "Tja, hoe mot ik het zegge... Bob, jongen... ik ben deze moregge met de hond op stap geweest... en tja... die hond is..." Bob voelde zich ongemakkelijk worden, waarom zou Buurman hem komen lastig vallen met het feit dat zijn hond van het wegdek afgeschraapt kon worden? Hij had immers geen bewijs. "Ja, wat is er met uw hond?", vroeg Bob, afwachtend. "Hij is totaal aan stukke gerede, niks meer van over... Een of andere maniak...", zei Buurman somber. "Maar waarom komt u daarvoor bij mij langs!?", vroeg Bob, nu werkelijk verbaasd. Buurman leek Bob's ongevoeligheid toch wel wat kwalijk te nemen. "Toen ik de hond uitliet, was Bob weg met de auto en toen de hond aangereden was en ik terugkwam was Bob thuis... Zeg Bob, wat doe jij eigenlijk zo vroeg met die auto van je?" Bob had de situatie volkomen in de hand, al was het dat een kleine detail, namelijk: het schuldig blijven van een antwoord er voor zou zorgen dat Buurman hem voor de rest van zijn leven zou wantrouwen. Bob keek beduusd voor zich, waarom zou Buurman dat nou doen? Bob keek naar de kapotte bloempot die onder het balkon lag. "Ik ging een bloempot halen voor dat plantje daar. Het was van een balkon afgevallen en ik had geen potten in huis." "Jah! En om zevenen zijn ook alle winkels al helemaal open!" "Nee, ik heb een moestuin daar even verderop en ik ging daar kijken of ik een potje in de plantenkas had liggen." "Euh, had je d'r een gevonduh?" "Nee, anders lag die plant hier niet meer..." Buurman vond het maar verdacht. "Als je om zeven 's morregens al in die kar van je stapt voor een plantje, waarom laat je em nu alsnog ligge?", vroeg Buurman. Bob begon zich zorgen te maken, Buurman bleef maar op details ingaan. Bob had al verklaard waar hij was die morgen, waarom zou hij dan nog hierop moeten antwoorden. Maar, om Buurman tevreden te stellen ging hij door: "Ik had een sollicitatiegesprek vanmorgen en ik had geen tijd meer om er naar te kijken. Toen ik terug kwam voelde ik me zo rot dat ik er niet eens meer naar gekeken heb... Ik zal hem nu wel naar binnen brengen, maar ik zal hem moeten weggooien als ik geen bakje voor hem heb. Buurman hebt u misschien een potje voor me?" Buurman, in een moment van opontlettendheid verrast met deze vraag begint te hakkelen en stotteren. "Euh, neeh,... Euh maarre ik heb wel jampotjes... ook goed?" "Nee, dat kan niet! De pot moet broos zijn. Dan kan het water erin trekken en geleidelijk terug in de pot vloeien. Met een jampot verzuip ik hem vast." weerde Bob af. Buurman keek een beetje in het rond. "Sorry dat ik je beschuldigd heb." "Wat?" vroeg Bob. "Ik zeg: het spijt me dat ik je beschuldigd heb." "Ach, al lang alweer vergeten Buur!", zei Bob, blij dat Buurman eens ophield met vragen stellen. "Naja, dan ga ik maar es weer!" "Dag Buurman." "Dag Bob." Buurman liep terug naar zijn eigen huis. Keek nog eens naar Bob's auto en ging toen naar binnen. Achter het raam kon Bob de hoofden ontdekken van Buurman's kinderen, die nieuwsgierig hem aanstaarden. In de late namiddag begon het gedonder weer. Bob hoorde een vreselijk gebrul in het huis naast hem. Het huis van Buurman wel te verstaan. Het leek wel een hond, maar in ieder geval niet op een gezonde, concludeerde Bob. Wat een gebrul, dacht hij, het lijkt wel een wild beest. Na een kwartier hield het eindelijk op. Bob hoorde buiten een deur opengaan. Hij liep naar het raam waar hij zag hoe Buurman een of andere wolf aan een touwtje met zich meetrok. Buurman ontwaarde Bob achter het raam en begon te gebaren dat Bob het raam open moest doen. Bob schoof het raam naar boven. Het beest dat naast hem ging zitten spitste de oren en begon grommende geluiden voort te brengen. "Hey Bob, mot je es zien, ik heb een nieuwe hond! Gehad van een neef van me in Rotterdam, die fokt die beesten. Mot je zien wat een enorrem monster! Een beer! Ha ha! Hier... Satan!" Bob had moeite om zich enthousiast te tonen, maar dat was niet nodig want het gebrul van het beest maakte het toch onmogelijk om het gesprek voort te zetten. Buurman hief zijn hand op en sleepte het beest met zich mee richting het park. Bob schoof het raam maar weer dicht en was ervan overtuigd dat het beter zou zijn geweest als de vorige hond van Buurman niet door die maniak overreden zou zijn. Dit mormel overrijden is al heel wat lastiger, dacht Bob. Eerder de auto zou total-loss dan dat er een deukje in dat beest komt. Bob liep naar buiten, naar zijn auto en ontsloot het slot van de kofferbak. Hij trok de bak open en keek naar binnen. Onder het matje lag de sabel, achter de gastank lag de granaat. Bob pakte de granaat, stapte in en startte de auto. Hij wilde voor eens en altijd rust en hij zou er voor zorgen ook. Bob reed de straat uit en zag Buurman lopen, net op de rand van het park. Bob stapte uit en liep achter Buurman aan, het park in. Na een minuut lopeen keek Buurman net naar achter toen hij Bob zag staan met een handgranaat. "Hey Bob! Wat doe jij hier!", rieo Buurman verbaasd. Het beest begon te grommen en weer te brullen. "Ik zoek wat stilte, maar dat ondier van je verstoort mijn rust." Bob trekt de pin uit de granaat en gooit hem voor de voeten van Buurman. Buurman kijkt naar de grond en begint te grinniken. "Haha! Die had mijn neef ook! Handelt in van alles!" Bob nam rustig afstand en liep langzaam achteruit. "Hey Bob, waar ga je naar toe! Die stinkgasgranaat van je is nog niet..." Een felle explosie maakte een einde aan Buurman's geschreeuw en het brullen van het beest. Bob hoorde nog een scherf rondvliegen die met een luide tik in een boom achter hem vloog, maar dat maakte hem niets meer uit. Bob liep met een omweg naar huis. Hij hoorde sirenes. Politie, geen brandweer, wel een ambulance, concludeerde Bob. Bob ging naar huis, at zijn avondeten, werd opgebeld omdat hij aangenomen was als controleur en sliep die avond als nooit tevoren. Dutchie / C D S The Sad Myth of the Super Information Highway The civilised world has suffered from worse hype attacks before, but this one ain't over yet. Ever since some famous people discovered Internet and CDi many people seem confident that humanity will spend the next few hudnred years in front of the telly, watching any movie you like or playing intaractive games. (Gee, and I kept thinking gamez were interactive coz they were gamez, but Philips made us think differently about that!) All this crap about the Super Information Highway is the next offense of computer corporations (read pc-companies) to get every to buy a computer. And ofcourse Philips is jumping on it with their CDi. Ray Cokes may be fooling around with his Apple, Adam Curry with his Modem and sum other people too, but don't you think they can fool us. Now about CDi, it has just one great capability, which is FMV. For the rest it's a joke if I ever saw one. It looks like it has a chip to get the digital information from the disc in analogue form on the TV. That all looks allright, but as soon as computerized images kick in, the CDi sort of genlocks it over the screen. And these are lores images with little colour. CDi is pushed by Philips like anything I ever saw before. It's used for all kinds of things now and specifically as a computerized assistent to people that are too stupid to operate any ordinary computers... Well, as people don't know much about any computers, but of pc's, I can understand why they rather have a CDi. Anyway, CDi neither has great game capabilities, nor does it offer any serious computing. It's just a gimmick, but still it's going to be big. Every time there's some contest, the main prize is a CDi. And you can't read one paper or magazine without finding a two-page CDi advert in it. What CDi has to do with the enourmous hype about the SIH (No, not the one you're thinking of!) is that they now try to sell CDi as the machine that will connect you to that highway thing. Some companies here in The Netherlands announced they would in cooperation with local cable networks start an experiment which would allow computers to connect to the cable network and connect to some university they could get information from. Now CDi would be said to be a perfect machine for that. Well, if it's going to be attached to the cable network, let me tell you what it will look like: IT WILL LOOK LIKE CRAP, BECAUSE THE ONLY BIT OF SPACE LEFT ON THE CABLE IS CAPABLE OF DOING NOTHING MORE IMPRESSIVE THAN TELETEXT! It's slow, ugly and can be called interactive for being able to choose pages! Why it takes ages for a page to come up is that the pages are all send one by one through the cable. Once you tell the TV to show another page, it shows which page it's receiving until it reaches the one you want. Slow, ugly and as fast as a crummy old Vic20, that's how it will look. The next joke concerning the SIH are modem sex-lines. Some idiot on TV was showing how they could allow people to watch 'sex-movies' via their modems. What you got was an awful Stag-ish looping animation of something that was said to be two people having sex. Needless to say, it jerked like hell on that awfull pc. Two pixels making out, wow, that would make me want to get onto that SIH like anything before... Everybody was very enthousiastic and ofcourse the pc-nerds at school were all excited... Sad people... Luckily they won't get any offspring because they're so damned ugly, otherwise I would cry myself to bits about what would happen if all people on this planet would become like that. Next: A police information pole. You can get some info out of the thing and report minor crimes. It has a 486, laser printer, modem and more inside! I could do better with a A1200 from what I've seen! But that's not what these people want: they want to push their products and make money. They can make much more profit on selling expensive stuff. What is commonly said here is 'cheap warez are expensive warez', which implies that a good computer can't cost less than $1500, otherwise it must be crap. And in the same program were some kids, really sad kids. They wore glasses and were constantly trying to be as ugly as they could. One eye moving independantly of the other from staring into the screen all day and they weren't even capabale of coherent speech. But they could type! And they spend the whole program sitting behind the pc doing something with a musical paintbook. Which meant: they could pick a picture and place it down. The only part they could actually do something was typing in words. And they had options like 'blow the screen' and what happened... Well, in coding terms: inversvid mode boxes ran over the screen, which had to be 'the explosion'.... Sad kids, weren't capable doing anything else... When I was as old as them, I was busy in Dpaint and in Soundtracker, being creative. But these kids are fed pre-digested entertainment. You'd almost feel sorry for 'em... What this had to do with SIH, dunno. Maybe the makers of the program wanted to show how the future generation of Internet junks would look like... I've been on the internet. It's huge and you can get any bit of information you want, if you know where to get it. You can type and 'chat' with multiple people. That's all. Because there are so many people out there, you could spend a lifetime there. And above all, it's free phonin' time at the university! But things are going to change, or that's what Sgt.Reese says. He's a bit of a modemjunk I guess. They are all doing that modem-game with planets and stuff in it, which probably is aldo played at the Internet. I personally think it's boring. You sit behind your monochrome screen and that's all. You do get to play against all kinds of people, but really, it doesn't impress me that much. If I had a say in things, I could come up with some quite interesting modem-based improvements. Like a mousedriven environment. Finally download programs with a fileselector or simply click on a menu options. What a relief would that be... If this crap about SIH is going to continue: I think the whole modem-business is extremely primitive. And the Internet can be improved too. Maybe it's my fault but there were bugs in the programming, more than I could count. I told one of the people there at the university, but they seem to accept it, like they accept pc's. Well, that's not totally true because one of the lecturers had quite some criticism on the pc & widows, but hey, that's not our problem,is it? Just Don't Believe The Hype! Dutchie / C D S We at C D S do eveything we can to promote new products that bring the Amiga boldly in places it never boldy went before... Or something like that... So here we place the official CDS list of rare and extra-ordinary programs & software. If you know anything special like these programs, send us a review or any other information about it, the prize, where to get it and any other important info we might be able to use. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- E D U C A T I O N A L ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Word Driller Deluxe Made by Chaos Systems, this reeel nice educational program can help you learn your words for any other language you might be havin'. Maybe a future version will come out able to even use da ancient Greek Alphabet. Or sumthing. Really, it can do everything you might need... Using Artificial Stupidity it can track down anything you do wrong and then make sure you're trained untill you know how to spell every little stupid word down to the letter. Prize..... Dfl 27,50 Contact... Mario Heliczer Papiermolen 33 1622 KV Hoorn (NH) The Netherlands Phone..... +31-(0)2290 40265 Localized to Dutch or English. Anybody who can translate the English version to any other language, please phone or write to me, Mario Heliczer that is. There isn't much text and you'll get a free Word Driller and be placed in the Creditz list. We also have a manual to be translated, 17 KB in total. Errrm... anybody still there? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ B U S I N E S S ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ AmiJewel This is said to be the best Jewelry shop management kit available. It keeps track of jewelry sales, makes new orders and can print out miniscule stickin' labels for prizes attached to (mostly small) jewelry. It's in fact a Database and it's a fantastic program. Well, if you have a Jewelry shop anyway. It beats the even more expensive MS-DOS counterparts, so that's one for us, not? Well, it had a four-page review in sum mag, just about what it could do, so there you are. Prize..... Dfl 1250,- Mr.Kassa Translated to English it means 'Mr Register' and that's what it is. It can access registers and swap info with 'em. In combination with AmiJewel it can automatically update a jewelry database. I'm sure of it if you ask the author he'll tell ya it can do lotza stuf more. Well, for the prize it should be good for something anyway. Prize..... Dfl 1100,- (2250,- if bundled with AmiJewel) Contact... Ivo Kroone Drieboomlaan 223 1624 BH Hoorn (NH) The Netherlands Phone..... +31-(0)2290-10170 Internet.. ?.nl Boo! A few days ago iCE came along saying he had experienced something really scary. Now as iCE always acting like a cool geezer, not being scared of anything (except the odd spider now and then) it worried me a bit. As it was put forward, iCE had been with some chap that could do all those kind of paranormal things you see on breakfast shows, making ya laugh... But this was a bit of serious. The dude that could summon spirits got a nosebleed while doing it and he could make a candle's flame burn sideways either left or right by just looking at it... or so I was told by iCE. Well, yeah, like 'heavy man.' So iCE came along, together with Mr. Zwijn and some other dudes. iCE put a big carton board on the table with the alphabet and the numbers 1-9 and 0 written on it. Then we did some other stuff and started summoning some spirits using a glass. The spirit wasn't always right and there were some conflicting answers, so I didn't trusted the thing back then. The other night we went to a small playing yard near iCE's house. I and another beginner summoned a spirit. As the other was really scared, I couldn't believe my eyes the glass went moving about, as I didn't push the thing and that other bloke seemed far to scared to do anything. I really got convinced the day that we summoned a spirit and I asked what colour the candles were. The spirit spelled 'rose', which is Dutch for pink. But as the four of the five participants believed it was spelled as 'roze', we were absolutely convinced that the spirit spelled it. It was the newer spelling... Here's How to Make Yar Own Board [Iff Pic Diagram on Disk] You need a wooden or carton board of 80 x 100 cm. Draw 14 boxes of 7 cm high and 6.5 cm wide on the 100 cm long side. And on the opposite side. Draw boxes of 2 × 2 cm on the corner of the last box of the 14 boxes long strip, so that the sides of the boxes won't meet. Now finish it off by drawing 8 boxes of 7 cm high and 6.5 cm wide on the shorter side where you were just busy drawing the 2 smaller boxes, so that the boxes touch the corners of the small boxes and they touch the side of the board. Now think like you are sitting in the middle of the board and draw the letters so that you can read them from that position. If you have one box, leave 1 cm of space on both sides and make character's lines about 1 cm wide too. This way you get nice readable characters. Then use black marker to outline the characters. It doesn't matter what type o' font yar usin', just make sure there is a distinctive difference between the '0' and the 'O', the 'C' and the 'G' etc. Here's How to Summon a Spirit Before you start in any of this, make sure you don't do it with people that are either total disbelievers or very easily scared. Summoning spirits is highly addictive and it's claimed to be very dangerous too. It works best if four or more people participate, especially if you're starters. If you feel unsave, buy a crucafix (one spirit claimed garlick would help a bit too, so order a kebab!) and place it somewhere near the board. Next imagine you're inside a white shielding (or so I was told) and belief firmly that nobody can harm you. Make sure there's absolutely no light except for the two small candles (those ones you use to keep the tea from gettin' cold are fine) on the board. (see graphic: positions 2 & 2) Now get yarself a glass (one of those small beerglasses are fine) and make sure it moves well over the board. Some spirits have told us that more light is dangerous, because the spirits can see you then and if they wish to do harm they can do so. The spirit is inside the glass and dependant on how strong he's coming in, he can see further away. The person who leads will concentrate and something mutter into the glass like: 'Spirit, spirit are you there?' or maybe even 'Ghost, ghost are you there?' Then he will spit air into the glass (no real spit, please!) and pass the glass on clockwise. The others will do the same. The leader will take the glass, turn it upside down above the middle of the board (pos.1) and place it once everybody has put a finger on the glass. It's very dangerous to remove your finger from the glass, especially if you do so on purpose. By accident, it's less dangerous. If you feel you're getting tired, place your other hand (if available) on the glass and remove the first. Be sure you can reach the whole board, otherwise the glass may slip away from beneath your finger and it isn't our fault if a bus runs over you or something like that later on. The starting question usual is 'Are you a man' or 'Are you a woman' to be sure somebody's there. First you should find out if the spirit is good or evil. But you may not ask him wether he's evil, otherwise he'll try to do harm to you. So ask him this instead: - Do you like us? - No means either that you aren't firm enough believers, or that he's evil! - Do you know Satan? - Do you like Satan? - Yes means that he's sort of evil. If there's no response at the first question or you want to stop ask the following: - Are we allowed to stop? < wait 5 seconds or so for a response> - If you will not respond, we will interpret that as a 'Yes' < wait 5 seconds) - Then we will stop now. - Thank you for this (nice) conversation < Everybody else says 'ThankYou' > Now the leader takes the glass and shakes it above the ground. If it was an evil spirit, he can also blow hard into the glass too, but we don't know yet what the effect is. Also blow out the candles. The smoke that comes from it will scare the spirits some place else. Contact with the spirit depends on the following: - Disbelievers weaken the contact - Beginners weaken the contact - Smoke (of any kind) can weaken the contact - Believers & experienced people make the contact stronger - Other (evil) spirits may want to disturb the contact - A unreadable board weakens the contact - Objects on the board that don't belong there weaken - Questions from people that don't have a finger on the glass weaken - Simple questions make the contact stronger. - Stupid and senseless questions do the reverse - If some participants strongly concentrate on another answer than the truth, that answer may come out. - If some participants object to a question, the answer may be scrambled. Wari0 = Mario, but something like 'Teuf' doesn't make much sense to you, does it? - One last and important thing: the energy required to answer your questions or follow your commands are taken from you. The harder the questions, the weaker you'll get. If you are going to cross-examine the spirit, keep the following in mind: - No questions whatsoever about the future - it's dangerous and sometimes creates a self-fullfilling prophecy. - Don't believe anything. If you ask if robbing a bank is okay, you now the answer better than (s)he does. - No questions that profit you: 'Does that girl down the street want me?' - No direct questions about wether the spirit is evil or good. You can always ask wether it's allowed to ask a certain question and wether it's more dangerous than a normal one. If you ask questions like: I'll choose a number between 0 and 9, could you show it to me?' or any other questions that involve mindreading, it only works good if you really believe (or if you've a weak defense against spirits) and no other participants (either persons or spirits) are trying to weaken the contact. Mindreading takes energy. If the glass does odd things like going from two places up and down and over and over again or makes odd moves, ask if a spirit has entered the room. Ask if Satan is there and if so, ask the spirit if he can remove it. Then if he needs help. If he wants help, concentrate on helping the spirit, don't think about Satan. After a while, ask if Satan has gone. If not, try to stop. If you have very strong spirit, and it's female and it says her name is Satan, then you've got... erm... well, Satan on-line. How to get rid of her: - Ask one by one if she likes you. If she does, you're weak. If she doesn't, ask her why. She replied 'Scum' to the strongest participant once. - Ask one by one wether she believes it if you tell her you're scum [Dutch: 'tuig'] Scum are the people that aren't open to Satan and aren't afraid. - Then let somebody who hasn't a finger on the glass ask her questions: it will only tire her out and she can't take energy from somebody who isn't in contact with the glass. If this works out, she will get less active and the glass won't move that easily anymore. Ask if she wants you to stop. If she says no, try to tire her out a bit more. If anybody's afraid, she will get stronger. If she gets very weak, make demands like: we will only stop if you will leave us alone for the next 24 hours and such. Then stop if possible. According to spirits, there is a heaven and a hell and the spirit world we can contact only consists of the losers that couldn't make it to either of 'em. Satan is just merely a weak spirit, but many other spirits fear her because she can kill the contact with humans if she wants to. If you die, and you will not make it to heaven, you may end up there too and if you've pissed off evil spirits, you're gonna have it. Or so it seems. Also you can summon spirits of living (sleeping) people. But for what we've seen that was all crap. As this stuff is totally 'outta this world' I don't know what to think of it. If you have any interesting stories send them to us, we will gladly publish it. Please read the story about 'Eghdiv, Nr.9' a good spirit we met with an extreme sense of humour. Dutchie / C D S A Trip to da Beach As we are some kind of group, we ought to do something together I thought... well, something different than computing... I had asked iCE to come to the lasergames one time and he was still impressed by it. Thus after two minutes of hearing iCE scream 'lasergames, lasergames', I decided that we just might go there. So I phoned everybody on da team, except Sonik who is still mad at us if we have to believe Sgt. Reese. Sgt. Reese agreed to come and he would inform Sonik. Sgt. Reese was only a bit worried about the fact that they use smoke-machines there. 'They're aren't bad for your health, like something chemical, or anything, are they?' 'Hmmm... now I get to think of it, it smelled like something I made with chemistry at school! < Heehee! >' Crocoboy was into it from the start. Then I phoned Cody. He wanted to come, but his mother wanted him to go to visit some family member's birthday 'party'. Well, Cody wasn't impressed by that, so he came too. Funnily I got Sgt.Reese on da phone later on, telling me he couldn't come 'coz of some family visit. Hmmm, some CDS members think differently about visiting sum old people you're faintly related to, living some place far off and go there and have senseless conversations about people you don't even know... But Sonik 'might' come. But that meant he wouldn't come, according to Sgt. Reese. But Sgt. Reese would also fix up a few people we could fight. So we went down to the Lasergames, were the bar was crowded with six or seven reeel odd-looking fella's. Which must have been the people that would fight us. Fiesta was here too, and he identified them as the blokes of some pc-bbs from the town where Sgt.Reese lives. Wow! They really looked like those computernerds you see in da movies... wearing glasses, have loads o' pimples and have a haircut and taste of clothing so bad... Well you get the idea... Or they don't look like any of this, but then they're just plain ugly... I looked outside the window and it was getting pretty late. iCE still hadn't arrived and if he wouldn't come with his friends, our team would be three people short... Then we would have had to be in teams with da nerds... That would definitely end our nice day out! Suddenly I saw something reflecting light in the distance... hmmm... iCE's glasses! iCE's father drove by and after ten minutes they still weren't back. Just as I bought the tickets, iCE came in with his friends. So we bought some tickets, which got pretty confusing as I tried to sneak somebody in cheaper with my 'membership-card', but he didn't understood what the deal was... Except for us computerpeople, there was this little vietnamese dude that was with the enemy. We were red and they were green. We blasted 20 minutes or so and that was it... We won 2685 to 3088. Once outside, one of the pc-nerds started telling us that some of them had done this more than thrice and the people in our team were mainly new to it. They wanted a second chance, so we went in again. We won 1748-597 without a hassle. This was ainly due to some people obstructing play completely. First there were two girls. Even though they were from opposite parties they didn't mind working together and shooting at about everyone there. That's also why the scores were so tremendously low. Next there was one of thes pc-pricks who wouldn't want to get out of some bonus-pit. He got shot each time, but before you had a chance to get to the bonus, he was reactivated, so nobody got even near. That really annoyed me and once out I said something like 'If I find that nerd that kept occupying the bonuspit, I'll smash his face in!' Some of them nerds started flushin' with red all over their faces, so I still don't know who actually did it. Also something that was really destroying the game was that the GameWarden, the dude who runs the game, was being an asshole. I bet we didn't stay in for 10-15 minutes the 2nd time. Also he allowed all bonustraps to run, so people were more busy to shoot at stupid bonusses (which they couldn't get anyway, coz they hadn't any creditz for shooting people) than actually play the game. And above all, the game was bugged. If a green dude is shot, the person most close to the victim gets the bonus, if he only holds the trigger. Hmmm... that's stupid! This bloody game's bugged... Cody responded that he thought it looked a bit like 'Hired Guns' and he thought it was okay. About everyone. But not me... coz I hate bugged stuff. Zappin' Dutchie / C D S Eghdiv, the White 9 Some spirits that can be summoned by thinking at a white sign. As it comes forward, not only we can summon these spirits that way. -==================[Spirits[========================- White 9 - Eghdiv White Z - Eghdiv's brother White X - Titus White 5 - Our deceased English Teacher -=============[Sleepin' People]=====================- White H - A girl who wants me, but I don't know her: Laura, sleeping. White Q - Fiesta, sleeping. Eghdiv: Male, English Spirit, Likes Beer & Girls, Ran a lot, Died of Smoking, Made Weapons or some shit like that... These are good spirits, although I'm not very sure what's the deal with 5, 'coz I think summoning the dead isn't my favourite passtime, especially since our English teacher committed suicide... Scary, eh? If you're easily scared, then stop right here and don't get into any of these spiritual things! The 2nd time we summoned spirits was at my place. We summoned a spirit like usual, but this one was different. It was very powerful and it claimed to be far stronger than Satan. Satan didn't show up that night, even though iCE was a very attractive target to Satan. Because of the strenght of the spirit, the glass moved like mad. Especially after Peter tried to send it some power.(This is dangerous to plain people, so forget about it, or first ask the spirit wether you know how to do it safe!) So we made a joke about him being a runner. So the glass made a few laps over the board and an 8 symbol along the candles. Every time somebody said 'Another lap!' it went over the whole board. I can't quite remember what happened, but we felt great and very relaxed. This spirit had quite some humour. He even answered when I asked him who spat on my hand while we were talking and who let a fart. He showed us who did it and we had quite some fun. What also happened was when iCE left and iCE said 'Bye', the spirit said 'Dead' and 'Dead' and... well, some more scary stuff. But it was a joke or something, but iCE sure didn't appreciate it. Chris asked the spirit to say something to him. Eghdiv replied 'Fuck O.K', which we interpreted as 'Save Sex'. Peter got 'Digital' and well, that's it. The next few days we had some trouble, because Satan repeatedly tried to weaken the contact between Eghdiv and us. After then we found out how to get rid of her, so we didn't have much problems with her. Simply don't talk about her, then you won't get in trouble. Eghdiv informs us if somebody is asleep and if we can summon his or her spirit. So we summoned Fiesta and got him to pee in his bed. We aren't sure however if he really did so, 'coz he went mad when I got into the room to check on him. He did say he dreamt, but not of us. He did say real Fiesta things, like 'Get outta!' and he loved his furry toy seals. One of 'em was called 'Superseal', which was even spelled correctly on the board. So I don't believe it was Fiesta, he would have spelt it totally wrong. We also said he ought to give all his money to me. The next morning I found out that Fiesta didn't pee in his bed, but that he did tear up his underwear... Huh. And he didn't give us his money, but he did buy us two boxes of beers, so he didn't had much money left. Chris and Mr.Zwijn summoned some girls to call 'em at a specific time. Chris had a girl that said she wanted him badly. She was still virgin and he ought to end that problem of hers. Hmmm... if the spirit is wrong, he sure will get in trouble. Neither Chris or Mr.Zwijn were called. Last, but not least, there's Laura Enkers. She's in a grade lower than I am and she likes me. She met me during 'religion' in a 'church three years ago'. I can recall going to a church back then, but that was because the people of the church promised me a goodiesbag with candy. But all we got was a small bag with rotten Snickers in it, really like expired candybars. Yuk. We got her to promise to talk to me. And her father's name was Edward. I wonder if this is true, as most religious people don't go to our school. And on top of that, there are very little religious people here. Except for the rotten Children's Vacation Bible Week people that drive a car around with a real old crap tape with children singing and a text that goes on and on like this: 'Hello Boys & Girls Soon there will be another Children's Vacation Bible Week. And it will be a real party week! Read about it in the pamphlet you have received. There will be a bus driving you to the place. Ask your parents if you may come too. See you then!' Hmmm... the party concept looks a lot like this, in the way it's set up. This text really sounds intimidating, like if everything in it is true. I've been to one of these weeks when I was a kid and I was really bored. Especially 'coz their had been some 'build a house for God' contest and my beautifully constructed building lost, in favour of something I wouldn't even let my hamster sleep in. Childhood dramas aside, this Bible stuff really stinks. Well, enough religion. More spiritual stuff: This spirit business, is it serious? Well, hell no, it isn't! We still have no real proof that anything the spirits tell us is true. There are many conflicting answers. The trouble is, that like with religion, that if it's a proven thing there's no such shit as 'faith' anymore. Or so I was told by Zwijntje. The spirits are right in many things, but I'm never sure if I pushed the glass to much in the right direction or wether somebody else allready knew the answer. If I were Chris, I would be a sound believer, as 99% of what he asks is answered correctly. I think you should give it a try once or twice, just for kixx. But don't let it take over your life, otherwise you'll end up crazy & insane, like us. But well, Chris is an idiot, lying around in puddles of beer and such stuff... And tells us he faked that he was drunk and probably he faked the spiritual stuff too. Ah well, I'll admit, we were faking the thing all way long. If you do have any contact, remember it's all you're own actions and the trance and anxiety involved in doing this is responsible for any implications. Dutchie / C D S The School's Torture Schedule Monday .1 Dutch 34 - Rotten stuff, I AM DUTCH, so why do I need this shit? .2 Maths B 411 4 < Shudder! > Why this on the first day of the week? .3 Maths B 411 4 Monday sucks like ... ------------------- .4 Art History * 6 They don't even have chairs, but stools! .5 English 112 - I'm young, got no time for Literature & readin'! ------------------- .6 Physics 409 - The teacher is a queer. .7 Maths A 408 3 The teacher is mad, he just talks all day long... .8 Maths A 408 3 ...without stopping one moment, not even to breath! Tuesday .1 --- 3 ...zzzz... (Yip!) .2 Art History 116 1 The teacher is unqualified for the job... .3 --- 2 ...what?... I'm at school for nothing? ------------------- .4 Chemistry 407 5 Flash! Boom! This might even be fun now and then! .5 Maths B 411 4 No! ------------------- .6 Physics 405 - The teacher likes boyz... he IS a boy... .7 Dutch 34 - 2 hours of hell & horror... .8 Dutch 34 - continued... Wednesday .1 Physics 405 - This proves nightmares don't end when you wake up! .2 Art History 116 1 She's stupid, da teacher... .3 --- - Fuck! ------------------- .4 Maths A 32 3 .5 --- 2 Fuck 2×! ------------------- .6 Maths B 114 4 Oh no! .7 Chemistry 407 5 Yeah! Yeah! .8 Chemistry 407 5 But the teacher is an idiot. Thursday .1 Gym 6 Muscles hurt till next week's gymclass... .2 Gym 6 Pain & Strain. Enjoy. .3 Maths A 408 3 Easy stuff, but the teacher looks like a junkie. ------------------- .4 Chemistry 407 5 The teacher looks like one of those ABBA blokes... .5 Physics 405 - The teacher is gay ------------------- .6 English 112 - Hopefully no more exercises! .7 English 112 - No exercises, pleez! Friday .1 Drawing 211 1 I'm tired, really .2 Drafts 211 1 .3 --- 2 Goin' home. ------------------- .4 --- 2 .5 English 109 - Hmm, this makes me consider to stay home. 34 hours at school of which 5 hours are unused and there are 9 20min. breaks. 34*50=1200 used 9*20= 180 unused - brakes 5*50= 250 unused - hours spent doin' nothing ---- 64 % of sitting in school is spent on lessons (theoretically) 34*5= 170 time used to move the another class 7*20= 140 time used to travel ---- Time spent................ 1340 Time spent for nothing.... 740 School efficiency......... 45% What does this mean to us, plain, uneducated people? That school is a waiste of time and on top of that it suxx too. Dutchie / C D S This Month's Top Ten of ways to make sure a dizk's dead! A disk is dead for sure if you... 10. Microwaved the thing for three seconds 9. Typed 'diskdoctor df0:' on a 1.3- machine 8. Poured three litres of coke over da disk 7. And 7-up, sticks even worse 6. Laid it on the railroad trax 5. Or posted it through the Dutch Postoffices 4. Sliced it up Fiesta-style using pops' antique sword 3. Tried to let the dog catch it when using it as a frisbee 2. Gave it to Fiesta and told him it's your fave disk 1. Gave it to Fiesta, no matter what you told him This stuff came from our 'boring' paritition from our HD, we weren't able being to think fo something original anyway. A Theory On How to Render Complicated GFX At the Speed of Light The current Amiga GFX speed isn't much better than it has been back in 1985. Yes, with ECS we got EHB and with AGA we got 24-bit GFX capabilities, but still there's no improvement on da speed department. The problem is that the custom chips and CPU take turns to access chipram. Now if the processor is faster than the Custom chippies, it has to wait doin' nottin', just because the others are too slow. Nowadays most Ami's have better CPUs than the 68k in the A500. The custom chips are that one thing that lets the system down. Our beloved blitter can provide us with 1million pixel/second power, but that is yet not enough to get sum real fancy gfx goin'. As there won't any AAA chipset for a while, we need another way to speed things up a bit. Any processor faster than the 68000 at 7 Mhz isn't any good with Chip Ram. So GFX can't be done very fast with the CPU in Chip Ram. But if we use Fast Ram instead, the CPU can be used to the maximum possible. Why not let the CPU render the GFX there and then copy it in one whole piece to the ChipRam used to display the screen? I ain't da top coder of da universe, so I may have overlooked something... Needless to say, if my theory works out in practice, it has no chance whatsoever in the System, when RTG (Retargetable GFX) comes out, coz' that uses Sys libs only, which can't do things like described here. I got this idea when I wondered why the LightWave editor was so incredibly fast. Now I don't say Lightwave can do this, I don't think so, because it's sys-friendly and multitasking in the first place. What I do think is that I did get a real nice idea for demo coders that have sumething like a '040 installed, which must be able to be fast enuff for this. Me being just a beginning coder with sum good ideas now and then, can't do this myself. So if any experienced coder can show me the results, I'd be happy to see 'em! Dutchie / C D S This Introduction to Asm is specifically written for those who think they have enough time and courage to start coding in Asm. Now I'm no real demo coder, more of a example-combiner. Sys-coding is easy, but C is easier for sys-stuff, although slower at some points. Asm is also handy to crappo coders like me that use trash like Amos. Using Asm I can soon handle PPMods in Psycho. Maybe next issue I can tell you more about that. What I suggest if you want to get coding is to get the following: Asm-One ............. contact TFA (The Netherlands) for a copy & real manual! About 75 Dfl, which is about 70 DM. ROM Kernel Manual ... for AGA users not sufficient. There's no AGA version. The legal (book) version costs $50, but there's a illegal disk-based version by LSD available. If you understand this, then coding AGA won't be more difficult, due to extensive AGA support in the AsmOne manuals. Resource ............ Hehehe... ripping isn't easy, but this tool can be used to convert programs to assembly. Only advisable to do with small programs. (Under 10K) ARTM ................ A shareware Monitor Program that can show your sys-friendly multitasking routines & more... Epsilon ............. The best and smallest IFF -> RAW converter I know off. This is required to get GFX to Assembly format. Contact: Martijn Boekhorst Kalmoesgaarde 9 3436 HH, Nieuwegein The Netherlands I'm not sure, but some sub-group of Effect rules that place Nieuwegein. He wants $10 for a registered version, which it's worth. Coding Examples ...... Buy a modem and find a BBS and you're done, I guess. But: finding clear examples is a problem and many don't even work on A1200s and such. Stonecracker ......... Because most data is uncrunched, you'll need a cruncher to get your 80KB intro's squashed to 40KB. What I'll be discussing here is NOT either a theory on coding or a batch of examples, but how I, as a beginner experienced coding and what the most rudimentary techniques are to start. Some Stuff you might need to know about: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Binary - Ones & Zeros. Hexadecimals - Ya know, those strange numbers with 0123456789ABCDEF in it. Ascii - All the characters from 0-127, but for the ease of speaking we'll see Ascii as a character represented by a number between 0 and 255. Digit - A reverse position in a value. The 0-digit in %110 is the %0. The 1 digit in %101 is a %0... The 3rd digit in $1000 is $1... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The 68k+ processor ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The 68k CPU in your Ami has lotza functions. But let me explain first how it's put together: Next to doing stuff to numbers, the CPU has this inside: Dataregisters - (d0,d1,d2... d7) contain mainly numbers for math operations Addressregisters - (a0,a1,a2... a7) contain mainly adresses Userbyte - you can't access it directly, but most commands react on it and affect it StackPointer - sp or a7... in fact another addressregister, but it's main use it to point to a storage in memory for some registers to be put in. ProgramCounter - pc... oops! This shows where the next instruction is gonna be. Jump commands change this one and you're program is of! It's an adress, thus 32-bits big. The dataregisters and addressregisters can be accessed directly from Assembler. The userbyte is very interesting as it contains information for tests. You can compare two numbers and according to howthe userbyte is set, you can see which is the largest one. And there's lots more. userbyte: - - - X N Z V C X = 1 if Extend takes place... I guess it has to do with if a number gets bigger than (2³²)/2-1... I think the result will be sign-extended using an exponent and that the first 16-bits contain the rounded number and the latter 16-bits the exponential value. Z = 1 if the result is Zero! N = 1 if the result is Negative! V = 1 if there's an overflow. I guess it's like Error on a calculator. C = 1 if there's carry. This happens if the result was that big it didn't fit in the memory position and it was truncated. Like this: take the result and decrease the maximum nr that fits in the memory pos: $FF $10 --- + Result = $101, max is $FF... $101-$FF is $0f! $0F & C = 1 Binary & Hex ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you can't use Hex (I found out how it was used by myself, that was hell, I was just 12!) then you're in deep shit. It's very simple when you now how! You could buy a hex calculator (or type it into Asm-One and see the number in Hex, Dec, Asc en Bin) but then you still don't understand how it works. If we'd take the decimal number 145, we can mathematically turn it upside down like this: 1 4 5 | | +-------- 5 · 10° | +------------ 4 · 10¹ +---------------- 1 · 10² ------ + As you can see, every digit can be turned into a number multiplied with a power of 10. This 10 is very important, as it's the base of the decimal system. Deci means 10, so that's logical. The power shows the position in reverse. So the postions are shown in reverse to make things easier: Number: 1 4 5 -=======- Digit Pos: 2 1 0 Binary works alike, only we use 2 as a base, instead of 10. 'Why this shit?' you may wonder? Well, as people made computers, every memory location had two positions. One and off. So a numeric system based on 2 was the solution. These are bits. They are on and off and some bits together make numbers. Which in turn can represent anything you want, like text, gfx, sound, program code. Well, enough shit, lets think of a binary number. We use the %-sign in front of a binary number, to make sure Asm-One won't confuse it with decimals: Digit Pos: 3 2 1 0 -========- Number: % 1 0 1 1 | | | +------- 1 · 2° | | +---------- 1 · 2¹ | +------------- 0 · 2² +---------------- 1 · 2³ -=====- Now we can turn this Binary shit into something more understandable to human, decimals for instance: 1 · 2° = 1 1 · 2¹ = 2 0 · 2² = 0 1 · 2³ = 8 -===- + 13 Wow! So %1011 means 13. Well, if you would have had Asm-One, you could also type: '? %1011' and AsmOne would show the result in every format, but anyway, you must now be able to understand a bit how binary works. To finish it of, lets make Decimals into binary. A Number: 25 Digit pos: 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 -=============- Number: % x x x x x x x x The biggest power of 2 that fits in 25 is 1·2^4 (A ^ means 'to the power to, coz we aint got no small 4, like the °¹²³!) So we fill a one into positon 4! And because this was the largest power of 2 to fit in, all more significant bytes (with a higher position) must be 0: Digit pos: 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 -==============- % 0 0 0 1 x x x x If we would deduct 1·2^4 from 25, we have 9 left. The largest power of 2 to fit in here is 2^3, which is 8. And the 1 we have left then is equeal to 1·2^0 So bits 3 and 0 are set to one: Digit pos: 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 -==============- Nunber: % 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 <- the answer is 25 = %11001 It isn't necessary you can do this crap, but it makes it easier to understand binary. And why you need binary? Because 4 bits is one hexadecimal, the numeric system you'll be mostly involved with. The hexadecimals thus use 2^4 as a base, which is 16. We use a $-sign for a hex number: %0000 = 0 = $0 %0001 = 1 = $1 %0010 = 2 = $2 %0011 = 3 = $3 %0100 = 4 = $4 %0101 = 5 = $5 %0110 = 6 = $6 %0111 = 7 = $7 %1000 = 8 = $8 %1001 = 9 = $9 %1010 = 10 = $A %1011 = 11 = $B %1100 = 12 = $C %1101 = 12 = $D %1110 = 14 = $E %1111 = 15 = $F The hexadecimals are a smart system. At many schools information engineering only goes on about binary. Which is stupid. Ya know, like having to write your name in binary? That suxx, coz 'Dutchie' would then be 7 * 8 keystrokes. But in Hex it would be just 7 * 2. 4 bits is one hexadecimal. Making hex into binary is easy using the previous table. Simply replace every four bit with the hex-equivalent. You don't need to be able to use this, as long as you more or less get the picture. To finish of the topic, a hex to dec conversion: Note that the sign for 10 is A, (11=B etc.) coz we don't have any one-character signs for 10,11,12,13,14,15 in normal writings. $F A 0 1 | | | +--- 1 · 16^0 = 1 | | +------ 0 · 16^1 = 0 | +--------- 10 · 16^2 = 2560 +------------ 15 · 16^3 = 61440 -=====- 64001 Binary Logic ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ All data is kept in memory in ones & zeros like this: [-------------Longword------------] [-----Word------] [-Byte-] Bit 31 15 7 0 | | | | % XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX Well, that is, in 32-bit machines (or 16-bit machines that in fact are 32-bit) like the A500, A600 & A1200. The A4000 is 64-bit I believe, and you have an extra option of Quadwords, which are 64-bit big. Name Size ------------ -------- Byte ....... 8 bits Word ....... 16 bits LongWord ... 32 bits QuadWord ... 64 bits The most significant bits have the highest number. So that's why the last bit is bit 0 and on. Many CPU commands deal with this. There are two ways to use numbers with the processor: .1 numbers that are positive only .2 numbers that can be negative and positive... using a signbit that says wether a number is negative. You cam see that the last bit in a byte, word of longword (the most significant bit) wether a number is negative. With a byte this is bit 7, with a word 15, etc. If this is 1 then the number is negative. Decimal Max: (For the math's wizzes) With Signbit Hex (only positive nrs) byte [-128,+127] [0,$FF] word [-32768,+32767] [0,$FFFF] long [-2147483648,+2147483647] [0,$FFFFFFFF] ...Hoppa... Without Signbit byte [0,255] word [0,65535] long [0,42949672945] Bin Dec Hex 7 0 | | %00000000 = 0 $00 %00000001 = 1 $01 %00000010 = 2 $02 ... ... %01111111 = 127 $7F %10000000 = -128 $80 %11111111 = -1 $FF ^ | Sign Bit! So if you would add one to a byte from start it will act like this: first from 0 to 127 then from -128 to -1 Kinda weird, but it works. But you can also look at it like this: %10000000 = -128 %10000001 = -127 %10000010 = -126 ... ... %11111111 = -1 %00000000 = 0 %00000001 = 1 ... ... %01111111 = 127 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ So that was some theory on how numbers are put into memory. Now we'll show you how an Asm program is setup: .1 First a list of Constants - Values replaced by words, to improve readability, like: CIAAPRA = $BFE001 To improve readability... uh, yeah. Well, if you would misspell CIAAPRA, you would get a warning, but if $BFE001 is spelled wrong, you might not notice it and your program may not work. You may use some mathematics like in Basic to calculate constants: CIAA = $bfe000 CIAAPRA = CIAA+1 ; Ohhh... Omega.. ermm... CIAA plus one! Using the semi-colon ';' you can add comments behind text. Instead of using spaces in text, rather use the 'Tab' key, as it makes the listing smaller and saves you from typing a lot. It's like with the 'del' key. If you never use it, you won't know how handy it can be sometimes. .2 Now comes a label (which may or may not be followed by a colon ':' These labels are needed to show a program where to jump to or what position to read. If the sourcecode is assembler, these labels are replaced by numbers, to optimize speed and to get the CPU to understand it properly. Label: Label .3 Press tab and start typing commands... Label: btst #6,CIAAPRA .4 press return and the next line will be auto-tabbed (well,if you have a label preceding not, but usually it is tabbed.) .5 the last command in line is 'rts' which stops the program like and End command in Basic, but actually RTS means 'ReTurn from Subroutin' and also 'Rotterdam Termination Source', but that has nothing to do with Asm. .6 At some points you may need variables, which are usually put at the end of the program. These are explained later, first a small Asm program to show you how a simple routine can wait for the left mousebutton. CIAAPRA = $bfe001 ;Constant (24-bits long) Start: btst #6,CIAAPRA ;Test the 6th bit of the contence at memory ;position $bfe001. Is it set to 1? bne.s Start ;If it isn't 1, then there's no action, ;loop back to start. rts ;If it is 1, then the program ends. What this program does it test #6 of CIAAPRA, which is the left mousekey. This is the illegal coding way, but I'd be insane to write an enourmous sys-friendly code, just to test this button? Well, if you want to write serious stuff, you'll have to, but this works good enough for most demos. As you can see we test bit 6 in CIAAPRA. The trick is that we don't test the number $bfe001, but the contence of memory position $bfe001. This is assigned to the CIA-A chip. Using this trick, we can access custom chips using the CPU. .7 Ofcourse many programs need variables to work out. To reserve some memory, we can use a label to show where the memory is. Then we use a .b .l or .w suffix to show it's of byte, word or long size. Dur to how the 68000 works, you may not place a longword in an odd memory address, so you always keep all the longs together and place an 'even' command in front of the long variables. What this does is look wether it's placed on an odd memory adress. If so it will occupy it, so that the next longwords will be placed in even adresses. Otherwise everything is fine. In AsmOne you need a label name to be put in front of an Even command, otherwise it won't work. Eg. Byte: dc.b 1 Word: dc.w 12 Even: even Longword: dc.l 372824 You can enter information in decimals (like in the example) in hex, bin and even Ascii. text: dc.b "Hello world!",0 The 0 indicates that it's the end of the text. Null-string. There are also commands which reserve memory like this: ds.b x ds.w x ds.l x 'x' is the number of bytes, words or longs that have to be reserved. These are automatically resetted to 0. A last note: these dc.x commands take space in the program, so they are also saved to disk. So if you use dc.x commands for many variables, it's wise to reserve memory for these variables and put them there. This will save lotsa diskspace. The data at these positions can be read using many commands: I call 'em commands, but most people call 'em mnenomics. The motorola chips syntax work like this: mnenomic source, destination, while Intel(clones) work the other way round. After this list of commands, we'll have some more data & coding stuff. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - Data Movement - Lea Text,a0 ;Load Effective Address: the baseaddress of the ;text is put in a0 Movea a0,a1 ;Loads a1 with the adress of a0. This 'coz Lea ;doesn't works with registers. Move.b Text,d0 ;Move the first byte (first character) of the ;text to d0. Ax regs are only capable off ;hloding Longs. Move.w and Move.l work like this, only they make use of (long)words Moveq #x,d0 ;Command to make a longword initialised to a ;number between -128 en +127. (x) ;The hash-sign shows that d0 must become the ;number 'x', not the number AT position 'x'! Movem ;Move multiple registers. Movem d0-d7/a0-a6,-(sp) ;All registers on stack. Movem (sp)+,d0-d7/a0-16 ;All registers from stack. The + and - show ;in what order the stuff is put and taken ;from the stack (see later on) As you see, the (),+,- and #-signs are important in some ways. This is explained later on. These examples only show one use. Commands like Move.l can move data and adressregisters, values held in memory and loads more. The Movem command is a special one. In the example it's use to put all registers on the stack. The stack is the bit of memory where you can put variables in, but it's main use is to preserve registers in sys-friendly code. If a program is run, it changes the registers. If your program is sys-friendly, it will first save all the registers and once it's done, it resets them to their original values. The previously named commands Move.b, Move.w, Move.l and Moveq alter the UserByte like this: X Z N V C - Y Y 0 0 - Z becomes if the move'd number is zero - N becomes "" " " " " " " "" negative. - Arithmetic Instructions - Add.l d0,d1 ;Add d0 to d1. Result goes into d1. Add.w d0,d1 ;Add the last 16 bits of d0 to the last ;16 bits of d1. Add.b d0,d1 ;Add the last 8 bits of d0 to the last ;8 bits of d1. Eg.: Move.l #$11,d0 ;d0=$00000011 X N Z V C Move.l #$FFFA,d1 ;d1=$0000FFFA 0 0 0 0 0 Add.b d0,d1 ;d0+d1 ;d0=$00000011 X N Z V C ;d1=$0000000B 1 1 0 0 1 ??? Addi Constant,d0 ;Add Imediate. Add a constant value immediate ;from memory to d0. Addq #x,d0 ;Add a number between 1 and 8 to d0 quick. Clr.l d0 ;Empty d0. This is actually not legal with ;adressregs, but AsmOne makes it: Sub.l ax,ax ;The result is the same. Sub.l d0,d1 ;Like Add.l, but substract d0 from d1. Sub.w d0,d1 ;Id. Sub.b d0,d1 ;Id. Subi Constant,d0 ;Id. Subq #x,d0 ;Id. Tst.l d0 ;Test d0 and set de UserByte N en Z waardes ;accordingly. Cmp.l d0,d1 ;Compare d0 with d1. Equals: ;Sub.l d0,d1 ;Tst.l d1 ;This function is very important to trigger ;Branch Functions for equations like in ;>,= ,<> etc. Muls.w d0,d1 ;d0 · d1: result goes into d1. ;Only the bits 0-15 are used in the calculation ;the answer is 32-bits long. The signbit is used. Mulu.w d0,d1 ;Like Muls, but no signbit is used. - Reeel Tough Maths - Divs.w d0,d1 --- Signed Divide (Division involving a SignBit) Divides d1 by d0. Works with 16-bit values only, but d1 must be 32-bits long, because it doesn't inly give an answer, but also a modulus-value. Thus bits 31-16 or ignored during the calculation. 31 0 | | d0 =%-------- -------- nxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx d1 =%00000000 00000000 nxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx The 'n' stands for sign-bit. Like said before, if it's a one, the number is negative. Divs.w d0,d1 divides d1 by d0. The result of how many times a full d0 fits into d1 is put into bits 0-15 of d1. In the bits 16-31 the remainder is put. This value equals: 'd1 mod d0' in basic & maths. It's kinda weird, but that's also how C works. You can use floating point values, but these are too slow to be of any use in demos. Eg.: Run Move.l #%0000000 00000010,d0 ;d0 = $---- 0002 Move.l #%0100000 00000011,d1 ;d1 = $0000 4003 Divs.w d0,d1 ;divide d1/d0 ;d0 = $---- 0002 Rts ;d1 = $0001 2001 $4003 / $2 = $2001 with remainder $0001 In mathematical notation: d0 = $2 d1 = $4003 d1 = Int(d1 / d0) + (d1 mod d0)*$10000 In this example I use 2 positive numbers. Just wait when you'll do something with a signbit in it... < shudder > The best way to get to know functions like this is to type this into Asm-One and use the debugger and see how d0 and d1 change in realtime! Numbers between #-32768 en #32767 are legaal. Divu.w does the same, only without signbit. Thank god. Branch Values _-------------_ mnenomic description N Z V C stuff bcc branch carry clear - - - 0 ? Maths... bcs branch carry set - - - 1 id. beq branch equal - 1 - - Cmp,Tst,Move... bne branch not equal - 0 - - id bpl branch plus 0 - - - id pmi branch minus 1 - - - id bvc branch overflow clear - - 0 - id bvs branch overflow set - - 1 - id bge branch greater or equal - 1 - - etc. 0 - 0 - etc... 1 - 1 - bgt branch greater than 1 0 1 - 0 0 0 - ble branch lower or equal - 1 - - 0 - 1 - 1 - 0 - blt branch less than 0 - 1 - 1 - 0 - bhi branch higher than 0 - 0 - 1 - 1 - bls branch lower or same 0 - 1 - 1 - 0 - bra branch always! - - - - Unconditional Jump bsr branch subroutine Like 'Gosub' jsr jump subroutine Like 'Gosub' rts end subroutine (or program!) Like '®eturn' Bsr is used for 'small' jumps of max. 32 KB. These are relatively fast jumps. Jsr is used for larger leaps, otherwise things run riot inside the CPU. Asm-One does Optimize these errors, but if you try to call a library function which can be in range of 32KB one time or another, your demo does work one time, but another moment it won't. To most demos this doesn't matter. They don't deal with sys-friendly routines anyway. All branch instructions can be seen like GOTOs in Basic, except the Gosub-alike branch commands. A program has to end with an Rts ('Return') because it's in fact called by the system with a 'Gosub'! Phew. Okay, so you now know (I hope) a bit how the CPU works. But that's just the beginning.... Next we have the copper. Which I still don't understand. It's main use is ofcourse GFX and you don't even have a progamming language for the copper, you have to enter it in word-values. And IT's Maddingly difficult too! The best I could do was to make an AGA coperlist. Precalculated. Some more shittin' about Data & Coding: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nu kun je in Ascii of Hexadecimalen of Decimalen er iets achter aanhangen. Bijvoorbeeld een string: (Strings bestaan uit bytes, dus dc.b(yte) gebruiken) As said before, using dc. commands you can reserve space for Asc, Hex or Dec. As Ascii is made up of bytes, we'll use dc.b: DosName dc.b "dos.library",0 Using: Lea DosName,a1 We can read the baseadress of the string. De 0 is a nullstring. But I allready said that. Dc.w's are used mainly for copper-list coding and some systemstuff. And Dc.l's 32-bits long and are mainly used to store adresses. Complete Example: (Note: Libraries hold system-friendly coding subroutines which can be used by opening the libraries using the Exec-library, which is always open) Start Lea DosName,a1 ;Load adress string into a1 Move.l #0,d0 ;At least library version 0 (irrelevant) Move.l 4,a6 ;find base-address (which is at pos.4) of Exec Jsr -552(a6) ;OpenLib Function, d0 returns base address Move.l d0,DosBase ;Longword is saved to DosBase dc.l statement Beq Error ;If d0=0 then there's a problem. Bra Okay ;Otherwise things are okay Error move.l #20,d0 ;Error Code 20 (This is returned in the Cli!) ;but not in the 3.0 shell.... hmmm... Rts ;end Okay clr.l d0 ;No error. ErrorCode=0 means no error. Rts ;end DosName: Dc.b "dos.library",0 ;Doslib name Grrr: Even ;Important! DosBase dc.l 0 ;Reserve one empty longword Alomost forgotten: You can also put combinations in a dc. statement. dc.b "Ascii!",0 String = 'Ascii!' dc.b "Ascii",33,0 String = 'Ascii!' - Ascii codes are also accepted. Asc 33 = Exclaimation sign. 0 is end of string. Binary & Hex is legal to. Even constants may be used. Constants & Labels don't take extra space, unlike declared variables, but improve the readability. Graphical structure source: Constants .... .. Label Code ... ... Label: Data ... ... Constants are declared like this: OpenLib = -552 or Openlib EQU -552 ; EQU means equals Constants may be calculated by means of other constants + maths, as said before. Variables may be initialised any time with a constant, using a move instruction. Constants may also be added to adresregisters. 68K coders have fancy names for this stuff, like Indirect Adressing with Posincremental Death or something like that, but that's just a name... Eg.: Jsr OpenLib(a6) A6 holds the address of Execbase which is inside the ROMs. Exec is the main system library. The Exec Adress can always be found at memory position 4 in ROM. Pos 4 holds a number which is where Exec starts. To read this we do this: move.l 4,a6 ;move the contence of pos.4 to a6. OpenLib(a6) tells the system to add OpenLib and a6 together before Jsr-ing the result. It may be confusing now and then when you need either the adress of a value or the value at an address. There are special ways to show which one you desire in Assembler: move.l #4,a6 ; a6 becomes 4 move.l 4,a6 ; a6 is loaded with the 32-bits number at pos.4 This works alike with datregs, only it's not allowed to do stuff like: jsr OpenLib(d6) because d6 may not be used this way. ------------------------ move.l (#)xxx,an Without #: Copy what's on position 'xxx' to an. ;Values with #: Copy what's at the adress 'xxx' to an. ;Adresses - # So move.l #Var,a0 equals: lea Var,a0 Using lea you don't need a #, because the command hasn't two functions - it will only work with addresses, not with their contence. -============================================================================- ; There's also a special way to use adresses. Then you use brackets. A: lea Var,a0 ;Load address Var into a0 move.l #4,a0 ;Move the value 4 to Var. Var: dc.l 123 B: lea Var,a0 move.l #4,(a0) ;Move the value 4 to position 123 Var: dc.l 123 -=============================================================================- In this example I only used the # with constants, but it also works with variables: Eg.: Move.l #Size,a0 ;Place the adress of Size in a0, ;not the value of Size to a0. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you would have to work through a long list of data, there's the option of letting an adress register jump to each following number after you're done with one. For instance, I would like to copy a string byte by byte from a to b: (runable example) -=========================- Start lea A,a0 lea B,a1 move.l #A_Len-A-1,d1 ;Thee length of A is calculated from the ;distance between label A and A_Len. ;Thee # says it's about adresses. ;-1 because else the ,0 is also copied. Loop move.b (a0)+,(a1)+ ;Interesting: a byte is copied from a0 to ;a1 and both registers are automatically ;increased by one (= 1 byte) subq #1,d1 ;Substract quickly 1 from the size. tst.l d1 ;Check on d1 bne Loop ;Loop on if it ain't zero. End rts ;End! A: dc.b "A string this is!",0 A_len: B: dc.b " ",0 --- This program will copy A to B. The brackets say that we don't want to move.b what's inside A0 and A1, but to copy the the contence of the addresses which are held in A0 and A1. The '+'-sign behind the brackets will make A0 and A1 increase with one. A byte is 2 hexadecimals long, so a0 and a1 will become 2 bigger each round. The CPU is able of about 18 methods of displacement on a 020+. And this is just one of 'em. I believe this one is called Indirect Adressing with Postincremental Displacement. Just to show what I meant with fancy names. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there's enough response (write us!) we'll show you next issue how simple it is to make a AGA (or ECS) copperlist. These are sources of the programs that were placed on the disk of Psycho #1. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Resources: Dutchie, being smart enough to by AmiIntern for 19 Dfl, instead of 80 Dfl! laughin' in da face of da Dessert Dancer iCE who got me sum codin' dox. and nicked Paul Overaa's Assembler Insiders Guide (which had errors in it and it was of minor use, but anyway...) and got me sum real heavy codin' dox. Correspondence between me and Sgt.Reese and Wizzie when Sgt.Reese still thought he'd become a coder. This stuff has been translated from Dutch and was completely rewritten, so if you appreciate what I've done for you, pleeez send a letter to the letter's pages or something. If you see errors and stuff in it, please warn me, so I can correct 'em. Dutchie / C D SCan this be true? A rerun on CDS? Yep, nobody has upto now claimed any rights to Fiesta. We're getting desperate. Please help us, we don't want him! Lost: A Relative We recently received a letter explaining Fiesta was mixed up as a baby and he has a long-lost twin brother living somewhere far off... We wondered, who actually is Fiesta's secret twin brother? Helpfully, as we are, we decided to use some of our sparse space for this request to allow Fiesta hapily join his twin brother and bloody fuck off for the rest of his sodden life! If you recognize one or more of the following statements in your own behaviour, please contact the Lost Relatives Care Society. These incidents, helpfully supplied by Mr. Dutchie are that ridiculous and couldn't possibly be made up. Otherwise Mr. Dutchie must be a very intelligent and resourceful man. 1. Mow over the electric lawnmowers' powercord. 2. And then lick at the end of the cord to see if there's any current on the wire. 3. Get stuck with your tongue in the freezer. 4. And then rip it loose so violently, the icebox looks like some animal has been butchered there for the next three months. 5. Put a 12-volts lightbulb directly onto the lightnet. 6. And have it blow up in your face. 7. Get your finger between the door and the doorpost. 8. And spray everybody with your blood. 9. Drill a hole into the cover of a remote control. 10. Because you thought there might be a secret button hidden in it. 11. Break a window. 12. Because you jump of the stairs and manage to fall through the glass door which was more than four meters away. 13. Because you want to get into the house because somebody was taking a leak and had no time to get to the door. 14. Because you slammed the door too hard to show you weren't happy. 15. Walking around naked all summer. 16. Because your mother got tired of washing your urine-drenched clothes each and every day. 17. Got an obscene interest in furry toy seals. 18. Like to take a piss in the middle of Dutchie's room... 19. Jerk off that hard the toilet comes loose. 20. Connect one joystick to two ports. 21. Or: connect two joysticks to one port. 22. Frequently blow the fuses with your electronics experiments. 23. Electric sparks fly around the room because the paper you used to extend a powerlead came off. 24. You put a violin on the radiator and look like you didn't expect it when the next morning the thing falls apart before your eyes. 25. You cut up 10 of ICE's disks, because 'ICE put glue in mine' (untrue?) 26. You cut up ICE's tire because 'ICE did it too' (untrue) 27. Get hit by female drivers twice while cycling. (Maybe even more...) 28. And won't tell your father, even though the the other end of the bicycle meets the first and the seat and weels are twisted into eachother. 29. Walk around like Mr. Bean (even more idiotic) and then tell somebody else he has a spastic way of walking. 30. Barge into Dutchie's room so hard the door comes off. 31. Throw a wooden bar after Dutchie while he has been gone for minutes and destroy a door. 32. Barge into a room where the door wasn't yet fitted properly and wreck the whole thing. 33. Look at a stick coming down on you. 34. And let it fall into your eye. 35. Shred your face to pieces. 36. With an electrical razor. 37. By pushing your face through the protective cover. 38. Because you thought it would remove all those hairs. (Guess, what, it did! Tough luck with that face of yours though...) 39. Stand on top of a boat and almost break your neck against a bridge. 40. Suggest rowing a boat into some canal where turds and bloated dead animals are floating in the water. 41. Row a boat into some canal where turds and bloated dead animals are floating in the water. 42. Say 'Nice Doggie' to some ugly mutta of a prairy wolf... [Didn't he meant to say: 'Mother, is that you?' - Ed] 43. Attemped to Format Dutchie's Sources Disk. ('And the allmighty God spoke but one word: Abacadabra... Instantly causing a Verify Error on block 0 of the disk and Fiesta to be struck by lightning... And God said: 'Let there be Rabbits in the Magical Hat' and that caused Rabies to some Majestical Pet...' Insane Prophetic Dudes 3:2:1) 44. Format all backups and originals of Dutchie's sources, because of some unexplainable reason only understood by yourself. 45. Doubt that Mega means million. 46. Pay $225 for a 40 MB IDE harddisk and think it's a great deal, although Dutchie shows twenty-some addy's with lower prices. 47. Say 'Yes' when Dutchie asks you wether you would like to have some mashed apples. 49. In your face. 50. And then become mad. 51. Because you got what you asked for. 52. And then throw a spoonful of pea soup onto the wall. 53. Because you though gravity would change the peas' course and hit Dutchie sitting about twenty yards away from the place of impact instead. 54. Get your foot stuck in a rabbit hole. 55. And then fall in such an idiotic way you get your arse burned on the BBQ. 56. Drink from a bottle of Berry Juice and Tropical Fruit Drink at the same time. 57. Steal Table Cloth (TM) holders from a drive-in restaurant. 58. Steal a wagonload of napkins at a Chinese restaurant. 59. Doubt the outcome of a calculator. 60. Actually believe that drinking 6 litres of milk a day is healthy 61. And then look like you didn't expect it when you were to undergo heavy Physiotherapy to get all the bones into order. 62. Actually be unable to open up a bottle of toilet cleaner and then simply rip open the whole package and jump on it to get the last bit out. 63. Want to seriously kill Dutchie. 64. Because he shot a piece of rubber into your face. 65. Because he shot some mashed apples on your head. 66. Because he shot a drop of toothpaste less than 1 mm³ onto your clothes. 67. Destroy three doors, four windows, a vacume cleaner, fifty-ish glasses and plates, a telephone, a record player, two amplifiers, a modem, a diskdrive, a numberplate and probably some thousand disx, just in the past three years, not including damage done to yourself or others. 68. Constantly eat other people's desserts. 69. Put matches into Dutchie's microwave meals. 70. Eat whatever Dutchie put into the microwave before he can get to it. 71. Drink all the Coke, because you know Dutchie doesn't like to drink Coffee to get his essential dose of caffein each day. 72. Steal Dutchie's clothes and then get them back full with paint, urine, horse shit or catpuke. (And possible 'combo's'...) 73. Open up a tin of catfood in front of the cat, while it hasn't eaten anything since some months ago Fiesta decided catfood was a delicacy. 74. Strike at the cat, because it in all it's skinnyness tried to get at the food which wasn't meant to be eaten by Fiesta in the first place. 75. Hit the sharp edge of the tin can. 76. And bleed half to death all over Dutchie. 77. Try to water the plant standing on the TV-set and water the computer instead. 78. Pull the joystick that hard because you lost at North & South that the computer falls of the table. (Even though some protective bars in the table prevented against these stupid accidents!) 79. Throw a rock in a random direction and break somebody's window. 80. Throw some dead fish into the neighbours garden, who on his turn finds his garden fertilized with cat turds and the remains of stinkin' rottin' fish. 82. Get pissed of drinking half a tin of beer. 83. And then get screamer and yell that much Dutchie & iCE had to hit you to get you quiet. 84. Trash the lock of your bicycle in such a manner nobody can open it anymore. 85. And then tow along the bicycle over the ground, until the whole back wheel's tyre has come through. 86. Get your leg into the wheels of a cycle. 87. And then get such a bloated leg you have to be operated upon in the hospital. 88. Swim in the sea when it's really bad weather and come out looking like a really mean Smurf, all blue and ugly. 89. Say you have over twentyfive contax. 90. And if asked why they never come by, or you never receive mail, answer: 'Because I don't want them to come!' 91. Have a friend who sticks his knife in anything that moves. Or doesn't move. 92. Nearly blow Dutchie's head off by throwing a heavy firecracker on him. 93. While Dutchie told you not to use his fireworks. 94. Be that scared to death when somebody says 'Boo!' to you that you three times pull the light in the bathroom on and out. 95. Accuse Dutchie of putting soap in your 'positioner' toothbraces' glass. 96. Even though the bubbles in that glass are caused by never putting fresh water in it for the past two years. 97. Have cheap Hair Gel that old it smells like some animal corpse. 98. Design Trivia programs in AMOS, looking as bad as some 8-colour Pc. 99. And then laugh at other people's creations. 100. Need I go on? Now if you have recognized anything, write Mr. Dutchie as soon as possible so we can dump Fiesta at your place. Mr. Eihctud / Lost Relatives D·Sign, err... --- Supplemental --- 101. Steal Dutchie & iCE's Util pack. 102. And then copy all utils to your own Fiesta util pack. 103. And be stupid enough to not remove the comment 'An Ultimate Util by Dutchie & iCE' that was added to each and every file. 104. And get mad when Dutchie and iCE kill you for stealing their pack. 105. And try to defend yourself by saying you had these utils allready, but for some incredible reason all of them had been erased. 106. Believe that Arexx is that funny little box with shifting sides you get when you hold the mousebutton and move the mouse in WorkBench 3.0... 107. Attack Dutchie for 'coming to near'. 108. And then become mad when Dutchie smashes your head against a lamppost when you walk down the street. 109. Put a needle in iCE's tyre. 110. Because your bicycle's tyre was deinflated. 111. And you suspected iCE, who had no key to the place your bike was stored whatsoever, did it... 112. Put chocolate biscuits in the microwave. 113. To make the chocolate soft enough to part the biscuit from the chocolate without breaking it. [I'm left clueless to what Fiesta actually wanted with these rubbery-tasting biscuits anyway- Ed] 114. Play Wings o' Fury, da old game, and don't put it on pause while you have your dinner. 115. And then want to attack Dutchie, because you think it was him who sneaked up to your room, managed to survive the trash and boobytraps in it and torpedoed da carrier three times in just ten seconds. 116. And just don't understand that the Japenese attacked you while you were having your dinner. 117. Think that the software is the stuff attached to the computer and the stuff normal people call software together. [I think telling him that the software is that stuff that's easier to break than the hardware would help a lot - Ed] 118. Say: 'If my tyre is flat tomorrow, Dutchie did it, and if my tyre isn't flat, he did it too! And I can prove it!' 119. And do it all day long. 120. Until you get everyone so annoyed with you, nobody wants to talk to you for the rest of your life. ______ _____________ / ____Old Machines: From Issue #2 Onwards 1.3 Compatible! \ · /XXXX\ · | X\/Xø.XX\Xx x It's: Humourous, Insane, Friendly & 100% Amiga | x/X\ - \XX\Xx Order Yar Issue Now: xXX/~-~ X/x Send 2 (new) disx 2 iCE, Support 2 Dutchie: · | .-\___/ ~. /\ /\ Contact: Rick Klaassen Mario Heliczer / /)CDS (\ \ Oliemolen 156 Papiermolen 33 | \ / \/ / 1622 JS Hoorn(NH) 1622 KV Hoorn(NH) · / _ \/ -.,.-~ ~- We Have: Articles & Addys - Arty Format Tester | · \/ · RealTime ClipArts - Clipper, da RT-ClipEditor \ / / Special Program List - Independant Mag Intepreter | \/ CDS Scene Statistix / · . xxXx __ __ | __ C H A O S D · S I G N Xxx__\Xx / \ /_ \ / / |/\ \ \ X\ °V° xXx /\_/ __| Y \__ | \ \__ Published #2 13-Nov-94 xX\/w\/Xx | · / · | · Dead Line #3 10-Dec-94 \X/ -dUtChiE- · \__________ ______/ For Sale: Anything you might ever need! No guarantee on new hardware, due to bankruptcy company holding guarantee licenses. New price quoted between brackets if applicable. Description Our Price 1084S monitor (white, A1200-look, new) .................. 375,- (450,-) 1084 monitor ........................................... 125,- A500 1.5 MB gary-expansion ............................. 150,- A500 0.5 MB Pc Power Board 286, VGA, DOS, Clock ........ 125,- Zydec 3.5" drive (new) .................................. 90,- (140,-) Golem 3.5" drive (occasion) ............................. 75,- Disks 3.5" DD branded (price quoted per disk) ........... 0,90 Disks 3.5" DD nonames (id.).............................. 0,75 Disks 3.5" DD recycle (id.).............................. 0,50 Mitsubishu PCMCIA SmartCard 2MB (use as disk or mem) .... 250,- (350,-) Vlab Par Ext. 24-bits RT viditizer + TimeBaseCorrection . 475,- Larger quantities of disks results in a lower price / disk. Contact us for details. We will sell to anybody who can produce cash on-spot. Call Dutchie At: 02290-40265 (Netherlands) No deals via mail or so... If you are really interested (and foreigner), send me a letter, if you'd pay a little extra I can always send something through ensured mail... - End Of Addys - Greetz & Creditz _----------------_ / Chaos Hall of Fame \ .1 Dutchie, Main Ed Psycho / CDS ............ 510,000 .2 iCE, Lazy Midget / CDS ................... 0 .3 Sgt.Reese, InterNet Man? / CDS ........... 0 .4 Cody, Swapper / CDS ...................... 0 Ermmm... a bit of empty here... shit... Well that's it! Last Words... This issue was just half as big as Psycho #1. It's not because I don't have anything to write about, but that there hasn't been any response of CDS members to start writing. I don't think Sgt.Reese will write 'coz he's a sysop now and iCE won't write 'coz he's mad I've set his Mickey dolls on fire. Yeah, that was real fun. iCE always was telling me Mickey was sweet, but he always threatened his sister to put Mickey on da railway trax, so I thought, wouldn't it be fun to set fire to Mickey. I didn't burn much, except the lower lip, which was sort of black. iCE went totally insane when he saw it. How old is he? 15? Well, that ain't old, but even Fiesta got rid of his furry toy seals when he was 11 or so. And Fiesta is an idiot. But you allready knew that. Hopefully next issue Sgt.Reese will come up with his Internet article, although I don't know what's keeping him. I mean, I can't type, but most articles won't cost me more than 30 minutes to write. And hopefully some readers will write sum stuff. Send yar stuff on a disk to: Mario Heliczer Papiermolen 33 1622 KV Hoorn(NH) The Netherlands If you want, we can sent the disk back with the next issue of Psycho. If you have a subscription, then we'll send you one issue more than you had subscribed to. For those who think it's smart to send a small article each month for a free Psycho should think again. It's much cheaper (and takes less time) to send two dozen of disks to subscribe than it is to send a dozen of times a disk with a small article. The next issue's deadline is 10 Jan 1995. We will not release Psycho every month, because of lack of advertisement etc. at the moment and the bit of experimental stage the article editing facilities are in. A last-minute update: we will have the 41-Hours of Chaos party next year. It won't be a demo-coding cometition, but a party with good (and cheap!) catering, beer, no power-failure problems etc. 'Coz we have acces to the most powerful stuff around here. Ofcourse there's a bigscreen to show all crap, but we'll tell ya later on about it. It will be sort of a Dutch party, but anybody's welcome, write me or iCE for more info. You can get in for Dfl 25, which is very cheap. Any forthcoming information will be spread by modem and by post (inquire if you're interested, we'll send you the final update!) and above all: THIS PARTY IS TOTALLY INSANE & ILLEGAL! Please note that we have limited space for unreserved tables, and the price will be 45,- Dfl for last-minute entrance. So I haven't anything more to write about. Well, see ya later, you psychotic people out there! The Editor