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Hi there. Before I start, you may notice that we now have our own E Mail Address which you can now mail us at. The address is active all year round, so you do not need to worry about sending anything to us during the holidays - we shall still get it!
Well, by now you shall have noticed that this is written in HTML code, which has been a first for me since this I started the mag all those years ago (is it that long Mark!!). I have peppered this document with links all over the place to Websites. This is really meant for the readers that are reading this on line, so I apologise now to all our non modem owning readers. We still luv ya!! For those who are connected to the Internet, We have created a list of Interesting Links to some websites and also, you can see a list of files I personally have written by clicking this link which will take you to the end of my Editorial (this file), so all you should have done is click the link on the last line (oops you will not be reading this if you have done that!!). Oh well.
Well, I figure that by now, most of you will be tearing out your hair trying to figure out the answers to the quiz I ran last issue. To put you out of your misery, I have supplied you with the Answers to the quiz, as well another copy of the actual quiz, just in case you missed it, and this is your first issue of Doubleclick!. We have been doing this for a few years now, and we are now into our seventh issue, so what is your excuse?
I also have made up another Quiz in case you thought the last one was too easy. I guarantee that this one will have you thinking for a while.
If you want a copy of the mag, then please either contact me or contact Barry directly, and we shall supply details about the mag. I am unsure just now about price, as I was sent a complimentary copy, as I am a nice person, who would give the mag some free advertising (you don't mind a bit of healthy competition, do you Mark?).
You can write to Barry at:
Send any new diskmags for a review to our address
The disk has a slightly Scotish feel to it, as my penpal comes from Cumbernauld in Scotland, and there is even a recipe for traditional Scotish Dumpling, and no, that is not a daft person, but a very tasty cake. If you want, I can send you a copy of the disk - send me a blank disk and return postage, and I shall pop one off to you in the post. No postage means that you will not be guaranteed a fast turnaround, but you will get your disk eventually.
If you want to get the disk direct from the author, or even send him
your own recipes for the next version of the disk, then you can write
to him yourself. Contact:
Please tell him that I sent you!
Although I don't like PC's all that much, this one is a pretty storming setup, although not as good as I really, really want:
Cyrix M2 200 MMX CPU (Not as good as Intel, but almost just as good)
Pentium Motherboard with 512K Pipeline Burst Cache
4.3GB Ultra DMA Hard Drive
64 MB RAM (Yeeha!!)
4MB Video RAM (SVGA)
33.6K Internal Modem
1.44Mb Floppy Drive (Of course!!)
Mini Tower Case
15" SVGA Monitor
120W Stereo Speakers
16 Bit 3D Stereo Sound Card
24 Speed CD Rom Drive
Windows 95 Keyboard
MS Compatible Mouse.
What really excites me is the speed of the Hard Drive - it is clocked at going mega fast - it has a transfer rate of 33MB per second (yes 33 Megabytes, not Kilobytes).
I have already bought a stackload of CD's to go with it as well. I will have installed Windoze 95, MS Office, Grand Theft Auto, Grolier Encyclopedia, Money Matters (not the Digita one), 3DFX (Rendering package - the extra RAM / P200 Processor should make it run rather wickedly) by the time you read this. Plus I have loads of Shareware stuff, and game demos for it. I also have Quake and Quake II - excellent games and no mistake. Also, the day they release Grand Theft Auto on the Amiga, is the day that I am a very happy bunny! Now, I do not want to wax lyrical about the PC, as this is, and always will be, an Amiga magazine, but GTA is one magic game. Ask anyone who has played it on a PSX (Playstation), and they will say the same.
I am not sure, but I will probably be able to view my Phillips CDi films as well, so I might be saving for a Win TV card, to allow me to take screenshots from any films that I have. Also, the 3D FX Card would probably be on the cards soon, as is a digital camera, although if I get the 3D FX card, this will not be required, as I can take pictures with my camcorder, and capture them this way.
Never fear, as I will still be heavily involved with the Amiga. If readers are interested, we could start a PC Section in the magazine. Please write to me and let me know if you would like to see this, as, after all, it is a magazine for the readers.
This is written in the future tense for a reason. By the time you read this, I will have the computer, but at the time of writing, I don't have it (04.04.98). I expect it to be in on Wednesday 8 April, which will be a day where I get no sleep!!
Hopefully, the mag should be full of some stuff that I have got from the Internet - A great Star Trek Picture for all you fans, as well as various documents that I have pinched from Websites all over the world and beyond!
It was not long before other people were emulating their releases, and trying to simulate the benchmark that Fred had already established.
It is a pity to see him go from the Amiga world, as he has brought a great many quality programs to an even greater audience (myself included). A great figure who will be sadly missed. As for how long it takes him to achieve the same results in the PC world - well we can only wait and see.
While I was "Surfing The 'Net" (sorry, but I hate that phrase, but cannot think of anything else right now), I visited the Digita Website. I downloaded the PC version of Wordworth, which is exactly the same as the Amiga Wordworth V6, with maybe a few exceptions. This is my favourite Word Processor, which I use daily, and have done for many happy years, since V1.1, right up to current day.
Can anyone supply me with a cable to connect my Z88 Laptop computer (yes, the one made by Sir Clive Sinclair) to my Amiga A1200? I have a software package that can handle data transfer, but any more programs would not go a miss. Please contact me anytime at the above address, phone number (although remember it is a Mobile phone, although I can probably call you back, as my calls are free), or E-Mail address. I am willing to pay postage for the cable and / or disks as well. I am quite urgently needing this, as I now have found a good use for my Z88, and connecting it to my Miggy would be a BIG help.
I have a cable and the software (see further back in the Editorial), but I want to get another complete package (preferably from someone who has done this sort of thing before) to see if it works on my Amiga, and also to use as a backup, as well as wire to my A600.
While I am in my "please help a poor Amiga User" state, and that I have got you reading anyway, I want to pick someone's brains concerning Amigaguide documentation. My problem is that I want to be able to display an Amigaguide in colour, with some text one colour and some another. I know how to get white, and red, but I cannot get any other colours. I saw a guide once that used blue, but did not find out how it was done. It is possible, but I cannot see how. As for the other mags, they are not really interested in how to do it. AF ran a one off tutorial a few months back, but it was VERY basic, and did not cover much. Pity they did not keep it up, as I was looking forward to learning more about it, as I am used to writing Amigaguides (Just look at the two I write for the mag for examples - you are welcome to load it into a text editor to see how it is done). Is there any learned people out there who will take pity on my soul?
I also read that Bill is now the worlds officially richest man, with an amassed wealth of over $50 Billion (that's a lot of zero's). This is ever increasing every single day, so by the time you read this, he can probably afford to buy the moon - three times, along with Saturn, just to keep it company. Obviously, this puts him well ahead of the Sultan of Brunei, a car crazy man, who has almost as much money as he has cars.
Not surprisingly, it is just like the Amiga version. Nice to see that they have not changed anything to please the picky PC user. Transferring files from the Amiga version to the PC version, and vice versa, is proving to be a bit of a pain. The actual text crosses over OK, but any special touches, like Text Frames, and Graphics, of which I use greatky, as any person who writes to me would know, are sadly lost, when you import to the PC version, which I feel is just a waste. Needless to say, I still use my Miggy to do all my letters, of which I do many. The only problem is that I am now using a crappy Panasonic 9 Pin Dot Matrix, as the colour printer is on the PC. I may be buying an Inkjet soon, though, which means I get my colour printer back again on my beloved Amiga.
Well, I sent an e-mail to Tony, and I got a reply in less than 24 hours. Now, I know he is a busy man, but to actually spend time writing to us personally really is the difference between CU and AF. I have written to AF a few times, and have only had a reply once, and that was through the mag - not a personal one. Alan, my brother, has also had messages from the guy who makes the PD collections for CU Amiga about his program Radman. Sorry, but his mame escapes me just now. I am, of course, writing this on an Amiga. His name is on an e- mail upstairs on that inferior machine, the PC.
Or, from one of my penpals,
It is free, if you send them two disks and a Stamped Addressed Envelope, for people who are in the UK, or an International Response Coupon for the rest of the world. You can of course get it from me as well.
Hope that you get loads of response, guys. I will write to you all soon.
Well, this is not getting the point across!! The main reson of the article was to say that PC owners will soon be able to run Amigas on there superiorly inferior PC's. Access Innovation have come up with a nice 'Inside Out' card which slots into a spare PCI slot on the PC, so that you can use it just like a current A1200. It will be shipped with Workbench 3.1, so all those jealous PC owners can play Sensi Soccer and Worms the way they were really meant to be played.
In the meantime, Amiga Inc have not said much about the new Amiga OS. Basically, deals have not been struck, so it is a bit up in the sky (well, it is at the time of writing this - 22/06/98), but as with anything in the computer world - that will surely change soon. A number of different avenues are being looked into, and all we are being told is that MS Windoze is definitely NOT on the cards (Thank God for that). Most favourite option will be a version of BeOS, which was developed for the mighty BeBox.
To find out the very latest in news, you could always goto The Amiga Inc Website.
It is quite worrying that all the scans cover almost the whole of the world. All you have to do is click the button "Find a spot on Earth", type in your location (town, country etc), and take it from there. You can move in any direction, in and out, and move in any compass direction, until you find the area you are looking for. Roads and everything stand out like a sore thumb, and I could actually see a bus standing at a bus stop in one of the main roads in our town.
It is just a pity that the scans are not really pin sharp, as I would really like to know how accurate they could get. It would be very nice if you could see how many cars were parked in your street. I think that there is enough technology up there to allow the men in power to read the paper sitting by your pool, but I doubt we will ever see the full potential.
You can rest easy, if you are worried about getting caught out, just in case you were walking down the street, and you have an unfeasibly large head, as all these scans were taken some time in 1992. They could have phoned, and I would have put my good jacket on!
Everyone who is chatting uses an id or nickname to describe themselves. My nickname is Stickyspanner, due to the work I do with cars etc. I have seen some pretty sad names as well like Icantgettosleepwiththishardon, or sexy_bitch_1998. These are extreme cases, and they usually just hang about in one place, usually the romance section, where people just spend all the time talking dirty to each other.
There is of course much more that you can talk about. It is possible to visit a room and play a game of Trivial Pursuits, or your can go to the regional rooms, and talk to people who live in your area of the world. Most of the users on Yahoo are from America, where it is very popular, as they do not pay for their phone bills, unlike us.
In saying that, the phone bills do not have to be extortionate. Most Internet Service Providers (ISP) charge their phones at local rates, so at the weekend, it only costs you 1p per minute, and this wil be less if you put your ISP on your BT Friends & Family (which reminds me - I must do that sometime), so if you stay off of it during the week, it will work out to be a lot cheaper than a night in the pub (won't it Mark?).
I only have a few haunts that I frequent on Chat. I can usually be found anywhere in the Computer section - usually the Chat Help or Computer games. Failing that, it is either Triviall Pursuits or the UK regional site, where I have made a great many friends.
Many people also advertise their own website on the profile that is created when you sign on. Initally, when you first use it, you have the option of making a profile that other users can load in to find out more about who you are talking to. Most people are quite honest, like me - check up if you like, but some people who, lets say are male, make their profile up as if they were female, and even say they are female in the gender section. I cannot imagine who would do such a thing (would you, Mark?).
Anyway, all joking aside. It is a good way to make friends, and actually talk real time to someone In the USA without actually having to pay the full cost of the phone bill. Many of the "Internet weddings" that you hear about are instigated from this.
Usefull Addresses
The Yahoo Site - UK
The Yahoo Site - Rest Of World
Not being one to hang about for long, and not liking Windoze 95 particularly, I decided to upgrade (can I call it that?) to Windoze 98. I must say that if you are connected to the Internet for long periods (like me!! - last bill was £203!!!!!!!!!!), then Win98 might be for you (assuming you own a PC!) There is a difference in the browsing speeds between it and Win95, although if you are not doing many downloading tasks, or Telnet & FTP tasks, and spend all the time in a Chat room, or using one of the great "buddy pagers" (ICQ, AOL IM, Yahoo Pager etc), then there will not really be a noticeable speed upgrade.
The games that you get with the Plus Pack (yes, I bought that too!) are truly a great step up from the basic Patience and Minesweeper that you got with previous Windows versions. There is a "connect 5" style game, Loose Your Marbles, and it is truly brilliant. Also, you get those nice Themes as well, which means you can change all the sounds, icons, backgrounds etc, just by one click. Most are rubbish, but there are soon good ones out there. Best ones are on the Internet sites, which you should make an attempt to download.
You may be getting bored by all this Micro$oft buttering up by now, so time to change the tempo. Also I (well, my brother as well!) have taken the great step to install a truly brilliant Amiga Emulator on the PC. We are using the latest version of WinUAE, and it is brilliant. We now have a mini hard drive inside the great big PC one, where we store all our Amiga programs. We are already using OctaMED SoundStudio, Personal Paint V6.4, Voyager, Wordworth, and a few good PD games from my vast collection. Another upside is that I can view the PC hard drive from the Amiga side, and we are trying to get the Emulator to recognise the modem. We already have the mouse, monitor and CD Rom under our belt (the first time I have had an "Amiga" with a CD Rom - mag disks here we come!!!).
The good side to this is that I can now write the mag on the PC (I was using it mostly in the latter stages, although all the donkey work was done on the Amiga), and then load in the Amiga Emulator, and then Voyager to see what it would look like in an Amiga. This is not a strict truth, as we are running the Emulator in 16 bit colour, although I prefer 256 colour, as the emulator does get a bit slow at times trying to keep up.
Soon (probably by the time you read this) I will have our ZX Emulator, and probably Shapeshifter (MAC) running. So we can then run a Mac or ZX Spectrum on and Amiga on a PC!!!! Kewl or what?
I was saddened to learn that CU Amiga have decided to cease printing. The last issue will be released before you read this (we will be releasing this some time in October), so you will be too late to send them any flowers etc. You can however send them a goodbye email at goodbye@cu-amiga.co.uk, and the best will be printed in the last issue. I realise that this contradicts my last sentence, but there is a rumour flying about that when the new Amigas are released, CU Amiga MAY return. Here's hoping. Its a shame that the best mag, in my opinion, is now being laid to rest. For the serious Amiga user (not all of us played ADoom all day y'know, although I did - purely for "recreational and research" purposes you understand!), I thought that CU Amiga was the best by a long way. RIP - you will be sadly missed.
Mark Harman (top of the list again - must be popular), Carl Read, Ian Charles Fyvie, Nick Abbott, Andrew Jackson, Scott Gallacher, Suzi Henderson, Jackie Bacon, Stephen J Ryan, Paul Gribben, Paul Stevenson, Steve Heggie, Sean Jones, Alec Walker, Meli Urbanek, Alan Fretwell, Ronnie Stevenston, Kirsty MacAllindon, Graeme McKee, Andy Whiteley, Julie & Mhari Robertson, Tony Horgan and all at CU Amiga, Gary & Elaine Glancy, Gerard Sweeny, James McGowan, Annie, Katherine & Estelle (you all know who you are!), Justine Lucas, Niall MacGillivray, Neil Robertson, Tom Williamson, Ian Campbell. Roy Hall, Natalie & Lynne Dixon, Roz Cooper, Jamie Proudfoot, Stephen Campbell, Mervyn Weir, Julie & Angela Crawford.
and the following Yahoo Chat & IRC / IRQ Members (In Alphabetical order, and not that of favorites!):
A_l1fe_Less_Ordinary, Alexakos, Alexandros (his brother), Angelic_010, Babyblue141984, Becky, Big Biker Dude, Borg No1, Celtic_War_Lord, Chenks, Chuffing Billy, CSide_Al, Cwwang 16, Deza19, Earthgirl20, Frankenstein, Freeze Man, Fresh_Prince_18, F_wants2binscotland, Girlwithanewname, Gentleman Silver Leaf, Grand Wizard_311, Hot_Chocolate222, Jenjill6, Katwoman_007, Lady__Marmalade, Magister Ludi, Markosma, Ms_Badcrumble, Mystic Marmalade, Nic UK, NikAbbott, NMac, Otaku Arh, Peach_Schnapp, Phantom07074, Pippi101, Puss in Pumps, Randy49, Scottie_Chic, Serena, Sexx_On_A_Stick, Silverf_18, Sooupy27yrs, Sparkster222, Sporty Boy, Stubby30, Suey, Symmy Angel, The_Drunk_Cowboy, The_Goddess_Eris, The Woolly One, Tickme23s_Ghost, weescottishfox, Wise_Owl777, Wizz_UK, WonTolla, Woollys Peach, _ZXR_.
David Bellamy, Ester Rantzen and Bill Gates have all died, and they go to see God to see if they can be allowed into Heaven. David states that he has raised awareness to the public of the Natural World that we live in, and how all plants and animals can live in perfect harmony. He is allowed into Heaven.
Ester then says that she has campaigned all her life to rid the world of nasty people who are only there to con people, and also she has enlightened people as to the amazing feats of peoples' talking cats and dogs. She is also allowed in.
Bill Gates takes one look at God and says "Hey you - get out of my seat!).
