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