Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Pure Bollocks Issue 21_001
-----------------------------
PURE BOLLOCKS ISSUE 1 NEWS!!!
-----------------------------
FROM ABOUT SEP-DEC 1992
-----------------------------
** NEW 'RIPPED OFF PARTY' DEMO BEING SPREAD (5/10/92) **
The first demo to come out of the ST coding party in Bradford this September
has already been out for almost a month now! The 'Perpetual Dawn Demo',
featuring digitised pictures of many of the partygoer flipped and colourcycled
to a sample mix of the Orb's 'Perpetual Dawn' was done by Rich Tea and EGB's
Smelly Sox, a couple of pseudonyms for some other pseudonyms! Given the fact
that the other two demos coming from the GBISTP, the 'Rainbow' demo by the
Untouchables, and the 'official' party demo, both have failed to appear when
they were supposed to, then this'll probably be the -only- demo from the party
for some time!
** 'FLOORMAT' VS NEXXUS OF TWB IN DEMO-CODERS WAR! (12/10/92) **
A month after the editor of ST Format, Andy Hutchison, claimed that demo coders
were 'sad anorak wearers' who have 'no social life', they published a letter by
Nexxus of The Wild Boys, who attacked this myth, and re-addressed the question
asked by the original reader of what a 'lamer' is. 'Hutch' simply ignored this
and rambled on regardless about demo coders not doing 'anything useful' (Has
no-one told him it's a hobby?!?!) and claims that being a former coder he knows
what it's all about! Well then Hutch, let's see all those marvellous demos you
coded on your Sinclair Spectrum then! (He's a former Sinclair User editor as if
you didn't know!) Wheee the Fibble's column was still good though!
** NO MAT OR LEDGERS TO BE SEEN ANYWHERE! (19/10/92) **
Honestly, you'd think that after the Ripped Off Party, Mat of UNT would be
rushing to put out Ledgers issue 14, but no such luck! We know he's moved
to a flat in Salford for Salford University, so we assume it's something like
insurance on the computer, but we don't think it can take this long!!! If
you're reading Mat, get in touch!
** MULTI TOS MAN JOINS ATARI (27/10/92) **
Eric R. Smith, has made it known that he will join Atari on or about
the second of November 1993. Smith noted he was making the final
preparations to make the move to the USA, (Visa, etc..). "Its not a
temporary thing being done to get Multi-Tos done, I'll be working on a
wide variety of software projects including Multi-Tos." Smith said.
<Source: ST Report #843>
** NEW GFA VERSION 4 TO BE PROGRAMMED (27/10/92) **
On Saturday, the third of October, a meeting of GFA-programmers was held
with experienced users in Germany, where the future development of GFA Basic
was thrashed out. It was specifically intended that the views of "real world"
GFA programmers be taken into account. The following information is from a
message in the German GFABASIC.GER echo, by Lars-Thorsten Sudmann, who is
connected to the firm Richter, which has taken over the development of the ST
version of GFA Basic.
The "real" GFA company will no longer be involved with the ST. The new
reprogrammed GFA Basic, currently under the name "4.0", will have a small
compiler, which can create stand- alone applications quickly. For more
experienced programmers, there will be a GFA to C converter, the code of
which can then be used by many C compilers, on many computer systems. Named
were MS-DOS, Windows and Unix.
The management of variables will be changed, so that the problems caused
by garbage collections moving variables around will be obviated. All commands
in the new version will be based on "clean" OS calls, and the dirly low-level
stuff that plagues GFA Basic now will be abolished.
Downward compatibility will be maintained, including the Line A calls;
however, these will be redirected to the proper VDI routines. The new
documentation will contain programming advice and guidelines for GEM. Old
versions of GFA Basic used to gobble up all available memory. This will be
changed, so that programs will only allocate the minimum necessary. Requests
for more memory will in some cases be made by GFA transparantly, while the OS
Malloc-functions will be available too.
The new version will also support modular programming; you can split up your
source code into smaller parts, just like in C or Modula-2, greatly enhancing
the readability and maintainance of the code. C-like structures are also
planned, but may not be included in the first new version. Function libraries
willbe available too, and useable from the interpreter. The file functions
will now allow the usage of real GEMDOS filehandles, and errorcodes, removing
the cumbersome old way of doing things.
The editor will be rewritten completely. The new editor will at last be
fully GEM, and it allows multiple source codes to be edited simulataneously.
It will also feature on-line help, and a multitude of options, so that its
behavior can be fine- tuned to the wishes of the programmer. Keyboard shortcuts
will in large part be the same as in older versions; shift F10 will still be
"Run."
The programming team intends to work as quickly as possible; while
obviously no firm date can be given at this time, Richter hopes to be able to
make further announcements about the progress before the end of the year.
Suggestions, bug reports and ideas can be sent to Ulf Dunkel % MAUS OS,
Fido 2:242/2.6. He is also in charge of writing the documentation for GFA 4.0.
<Source: Pascal Kourorek>
** 'OFFICIAL' RIPPED OFF DEMO DELAYED (20/11/92) **
The Ripped Off party demo has been delayed. Ben and Tat of Chaos, who are
compiling the demo made by groups attending the Great British International
ST Party in Bradford had hoped to release the demo soon after the party in
September, but it's now been delayed beyond December. Apparently, some of the
guest screens have been causing problems....
** FUCKED AMAZINE 2 BEING SPREAD (21/11/92) **
We finally managed to get our hands on issue 2 of Amazine, the great disk
magazine from Mad Vision. However, the version that's being spread around
our area is a bit scrambled. Two whole directories of text files are missing,
and 2 of the 3 intros are fucked! We don't think this has got anything to
Mad Vision, and we're trying to get a fully working version!
** CYNIX ACTIVITY DYING DOWN (22/11/92) **
A reliable source close to a former member of Cynix tells us that most of them
are getting less and less involved with hacking. There are apparently only 2
or 3 active members in the group now! Reminds me of a song by the Waterboys
called 'Whole of the Moon' ...
** 'PERPETUAL DAWN' SOURCE CODE RELEASED! (28/11/92) **
Soon after the release of the Ripped Off Party demo, the source has been
released! This includes the entire source- all you need to make a 'homebrew'
version of the demo!
** NETWORK TRASH RUNS FOR 9 DAYS (28/11/92) **
Genie and Torg's sneaky network, Network Trash, had an unbroken run in the
Computing Science department of Glasgow University for 9 days before being
discovered and wiped. (See features on NT elsewhere in magazine.) Genie was in
charge of the network for the 9 day experimental run, and said he was
surprised that is lasted so long! During the time, NT managed to get 4 new
members, and one of them (Banana Hand) is also writing for this magazine.
Genie hopes to restart NT for a slightly longer time reasonably soon.
** BIG BARRAS BUST! (29/11/92) **
In the week after a major piracy bust in Leeds, the Barrowlands market in
Glasgow has been the scene for a big swoop by the authorities on pirate
stalls.
The weekend market, situated in the central east end of the Scottish city,
and one of the biggest markets in Europe, has been home to a growing number
of stalls copying and selling commercial software, most famously one stall
which was featured in an 'exclusive' by the Scottish Daily Record
newspaper on piracy in the 'Barras' almost a year ago. More recently, there
were reports in the Glasgow Evening Times of pirate copies of 'MS-DOS 7' being
sold at the many stalls dealing in ST, Amiga, and PC formats. Since MS-DOS 6
has only been released in 'beta' versions, it was assumed that this was a bit
of overactive rumour mongering. However, it has been recognised that the Barras
is becoming a major centre for software piracy.
The swoop, by police and Trading Standards officers, took place on the
afternoon of Sunday 29th November, from about 3 to 4 pm, starting at the west
end of the market and working towards the east. We have heard that 4 stalls
were caught, and many closed early.
However, it is possible that the entire Barras market might not have been
covered- police and Trading Standards officers might have been satisfied with
their progress so far. This rumour comes from a source who was at the Phoenix
PD stall at the east end of the market while the raid was in progress elsewhere
in the market. A couple of people at the stall had heard of a rumour of a raid
happening, then another person at the stall confirmed this and said that 2
stalls had just been busted. He then casually walked away. Then one of the
stallholders, who had just returned from visiting a computer hardware stall at
the opposite end of the market, also confirmed these rumours and expressed
surprise at their stall not being paid a visit- the police and TS officers have
the powers to confiscate computers and disks from any stall, even a PD stall
like Phoenix, in order to check that no commercial software of any kind is
being sold. The possibility is that either the swoop will continue on another
day, or that many stalls including PD ones have been checked by TS officers
posing as customers, in order to check whether the software being sold is
pirated or not.
Many stallholders were caught on the hop by the raid- we saw someone from an
Amiga stall fleeing with his computer wrapped in a towel. However many
were forewarned of the raid late on the previous morning, and their stalls were
empty with lists and notices removed by the time the raid came around. A
reliable source had done a quick survey before the raid and found that most of
the well known stalls had already disappeared.
One of our sources says that there is in-fighting between some of the stalls
in the Barras, some of which includes stalls informing on each other, which
could have contributed to this swoop. Our source was also critical of the
attitudes of a couple of the stallholders, who appeared to be over-complacent.
The busts in Glasgow and Leeds appears to mark a growth in anti-piracy
activity over the traditional boom period of Christmas. However, previous
experience- particularly bearing in the mind that one stall
continued even after being bust once before- suggests that piracy is not yet
dead in the market. In the meantime, many are looking to see if there is any
further activity from the authorities in the following couple weeks in
Barrowland.
** ATARI STUMPFED IN BIG HOAX MESSAGE!! (30/11/92) **
Recently a message was posted on the bbs network Mausnet, which went like
this...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Msg #91 / 1-93 Time: 25 Oct 92 20:00:00
From: Alwin Stumpf @ ST
To : All
Subj: ATARI's Zukunft
---------[ATARI_EXPERT.GER]-----------
* Originally from Area 'Atari.Soft'
* Originally to
* Forwarded by Thorsten Bella on 2:245/8.35, 27 Oct 92 00:30:02
From: Alwin Stumpf @ ST
To : All
Subj: ATARI's future
Dear ATARI users,
I am sure you are aware that I am no longer working at ATARI Corp.
Different personal and inner company reasons made me do this, not so easy
a step.
I understand the current German ATARI market is categorized as one of
the strongest markets anywhere, and I am sure that makes it hard to
understand why I left. I appreciate your feelings deeply. My decision to
leave ATARI was strengthened as a result of it being decided to stop
FALCON production because people noticed that the planned customers
weren't ready to invest between 2300 and 3500 German Marks ($1300 and
$2000). These persons would most likely buy a MS DOS compatible computer
or even a Macintosh instead of putting a low end machine with very limited
uses in their house. At this time however, a few FALCONS are being
delivered to a few select, handpicked German dealers, these belong to the
first production run and are without, as announced, MultiTOS. Instead,
they are being delivered with the single tasking TOS 4.0x. The number of
machines are limited and will be the only ones available for the time
being. You most likely will not understand this unusual strategy, but why
should we produce thousands upon thousands of FALCONS that can't be sold?
The FSM-GDOS and MultiTOS production had to be stopped in the last
minute because 1) a renegotiation with Mr. Eric Smith (copywrite) and 2)
differences between ATARI and Bitstream. Naturally ATARI knows that
MultiTOS, for the entire semiprofessional area, shouldn't be
underestimated and that the MT project will be taken up again.
The SUTRA project is still under high pressure development and should
come out around the first of April 1993.
The entire ATARI product line is still going to be 'fully supported'
as much as possible, although the 68030 class of computers will have to be
held back until it is believed they have a fairly good chance in the
market. At this time, the need for powerful machines seems to be
satisfied by the TT and ATARI is having it hard enough as it is. I hope I
was able to give you a small picture into ATARI's future and I beg of you
not to doubt in ATARI's credibility. Think positive!
I wish you all much luck
With friendly grusses
Alwin Stumpf
(former General Manager, ATARI Germany)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was also published in the online 'unofficial' ST magazine
ST Report issue number #843 on 27th October 1992, under the headline:
'STUMPF SPEAKS UP!'
If you don't know who Stumpf is or was, he was the former head of Atari
Germany! Since the Atari's very successful in Germany, this message caused
one hell of a fuss! There were rumours about why he might have said these
strange things- for example he still owes $700,000 dollars in interest free
loans from Atari! However, Atari's new employee Eric Smith (see above)
immediately sent back a message in answer:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Msg #266 / 1-309 Time: 29 Oct 92 13:56:27
From: 7103_2622@uwovax.uwo.ca
To : All
Subj: A Mausnet rumor about MultiTOS
---------[COMP.SYS.ATARI.ST]-----------------------------------------------
7103_2622@uwovax.uwo.ca (Eric Smith), via Kralizec 3:713/602
It has come to my attention that someone posted a rumor on the Maus network
to the effect that Atari has had to delay release of MultiTOS because of
a copyright dispute with me.
This is ABSOLUTELY FALSE. Atari has a valid, legal license for the use of
MiNT in MultiTOS, and they have fulfilled all of their contractual
obligations with respect to that license (as have I). My relations with
Atari and with the TOS development group in particular have always been
excellent. In fact, I will soon be moving to Sunnyvale to go to work for
Atari.
The same Mausnet message had some other reports about the Falcon and
FSM-GDOS. My understanding is that these reports are just as false as
the MultiTOS rumor.
The above are my opinions only; Atari is hiring me to work on TOS and
other systems software, not to issue official statements :-).
--
Eric R. Smith email:
Dept. of Mathematics eric.smith@uwo.ca
University of Western Ontario
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, the plot thickens! Either Stumpf has got an axe to grind or it's a hoax!
More recently, we got a messages cornfirming the latter theory:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Msg #232 / 1-235 Time: 01 Nov 92 15:18:09
From: ts@uni-paderborn.de
To : All
Subj: Re: Is Atari dying..??
---------[COMP.SYS.ATARI.ST.TECH]---------------------------
--------------------
ts@uni-paderborn.de (Thomas Schulze [TfS]), via Kralizec 3:713/602
(* Deleted junk message from someone who says he
is A. Stumpf, former President of Atari Germany. *)
NO!
Don't post such bullsh*t.
This is a posting from a german mailbox net. Its
junk. The idiot who wrote this was using Alwin Stumpf
as his alias, it was NOT Mr. Stumpf.
(And we had two more guys calling themselves Jack Tramiel
and Jesus from Nazareth... Guess what...)
So, stop discussing about this article NOW! Its NOT
TRUE! Read my lips: Its JUNK!
Grmpf. I just can't stand this kind of fun.
Bye, Thomas.
--
___________________________________________________
Thomas Schulze, [TfS] "355/113 -- Not the famous
ts@uni-paderborn.de irrational number PI, but an
incredible simulation!"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So if anyone brings the Stumpf message up, then you know what to do
with them!
<Sources : Gary Spiteri, Michael Smith, ST Report #843>
** WHERE THE FUCK IS LEDGERS? (2/12/92) **
Are you still alive, Mat?
** DELTA FORCE GIVE UP ON MAGGIE! (5/12/92) **
Whaaat! Yes, it true! Delta Force are ceasing to work on the ancient but newly
revamped diskmag. This might have to do with the fact that there's no proper
Maggie team, and that DF have had so little time and ideas for articles that
they've had to do stuff like download porno text files to fill up space! We
don't know is someone else is going to continue work on Maggie, but if you're
reading this DF, then please think about it, we don't want to see this great
diskmag go down the plughole- at least before Atari does!
** 'SUPER FALCON' RUMOURS ABOUND (5/12/92) **
We have been hearing rumours of a 'Super Falcon' to be launched soon after the
Falcon 040, which is to be launched after the 030, which hasn't really been
launched yet! It will go at 25 MHz like the 040, but will be completely 32 bit
in every way, unlike the 030, which is 16/24/32 bit depending on what you're
doing with it! There is also rumour of a faster and bigger DSP, and one or two
custom chips- like rotating and scaling sprites. This is what the original
Falcon should have had anyway! The rumours also tell of a 32 channel DMA sound
chip! Sounds like Atari are taking note of rumours that Commodore is working
on a 16 channel Paula soundchip.
** NEW VERSION OF SPECTRE ON IT'S WAY (6/12/92) **
This is from a report of the WAACE Atari show held last
weekend, where among other Dave Small was in attendence.
"Dave advised us that Spectre 3.1 is right around the corner. Seems he was
encountering problems that appeared to be in the Spectre code only to find out
that his TT had a bad DMA chip. Now that that is solved, he says to keep your
eye out in the Gadgets RT library for the upload of version 3.1 (TT support).
He also said that version 3.7 will follow shortly (also as an upload to the on
line services) and explained the jump in version numbers as being
appropriate since version 3.7 will deal with System 7 stuff."
<Source: ST Report>
** FALCON IN SHOPS! .... FOR A BIT (6/12/92) **
Hands up all of you who thought that the Falcon hadn't reached the shops yet?
Well, believe it or not it was in Dixons for a weekend in November, and was
withdrawn just as quickly! Thanks to a contact of ours for spotting the
machine on sale! And to Atari we say, GET THE FUCKING THING FIXED BEFORE YOU
SELL IT!
** 'BIG BARRAS BUST' BALONEY STORY IN PAPERS! (14/12/92) **
According to the Daily Record (the top selling crap tabloid in Scotland) there
was a 'major' bust of piracy in the Barras on the previous day (Sunday 13th
December) at which over 3000 worth of pirated software was seized. Well, we at
Pure Bollocks HQ reckon the 'journalists' in question must have been at the
pubs on that Sunday, or at least anywhere other than the Barras, because there
was NO bust at all at that date! Not even a whiff of police and trading
standards officiers! Ask anyone who was there, and they will confirm what we
say. This story is a heap of shit, and it looks like FAST are just hyping up
the story of a bust that happened 2 weeks earlier (see above) and pretending it
happened now rather than the end of November! Why? We think it could be a
prelude to a REAL bust- disinformation to make people think that the
authorities have got what they wanted from the Barras and are not going to
touch them again. If so, expect more news soon!
** FALCON 030 IS FINALLY OUT AND ON TV! (17/12/92) **
What more can we say? At last Atari have released the bloody thing- but not in
bulk (ie Dixons) yet- aaaarrrgh! It did manage to get a spot on Children's
ITV computer show 'Bad Influence' (Much better we think than shitty old
'Gamesmaster'!). Unfortunately none of us saw it, but we reckon it didn't get
slagged off too much if Atari let it on!
** PIXEL TWIN GETS FIRST OF THE FALCONS! (19/12/92) **
We've heard that DML of the Pixel Twins is now a proud owner of Atari's
new computer- thus making TPT the first Scottish group to get one! He's
apparently had it a couple of days, and it doing 50 Hz texture mapped 3D on
it already! We believe he's got the 4 meg 030 with a decent HD (more than 40
meg we hear!), so at least the 4 meg HD Falcon is out! We hear that he's been
needing to use TRAPs all the time to access some of the system variables.
Aaargh, does this mean that it's 100% ST/STE incompatible now?!?!?!
[See also 'Falcon News'.]
** BIG BARRAS BUST - THE (REAL) SEQUEL (21/12/92) **
One week after the fabricated Daily Record story, there has been a major bust
on the Barras on the weekend before Christmas. We believe that as much as 8
stalls have been hit, though these were small stalls.
It started in the morning of Sunday 20th December, with trading standards
officers posing as 'customers' and ordering copies of pirate software- once
they had it, they would have enough evidence to call the police in. A
contact told us that all the stalls in the extensive Glasgow market were
tested this way, even the PD stalls, which do not sell any pirate software. We
were also told that again some stalls have heard rumours of a bust and were on
the lookout for any suspicious characters. One Amiga stall took an order from
a trading standards officer, and when the man went away, he was told by a
passer-by of his identity, and then the stallholder immediately closed the stall
and left.
It now appears the case that the Daily Record story was almost certainly a
piece of disinformation designed to lull pirate stallholders into believing
that there were to be no more raids. However, this appears to have had the
opposite on some more experienced stallholders, making them more suspicious of
an impending raid, and therefore not setting up their stalls during that
weekend.
It also appears that the extensive raids occuring in the Barras in the run
up to Christmas have less to do with FAST than the Microsoft corporation, which
is allegedly providing funding direct from it's US headquarters for this major
swoop on piracy, as well as the fabricated tabloid story. This is due to the
high incidence of beta copies of it's MS-DOS version 6 being sold in the
Barras before it's release.
** TOP TV KIDS SHOW DIES! (29/12/92) **
Yes, those fuckin' Tories have done it again! As Thames TV loses its franchise
to Carlton, one of the things that will go is that classic children's TV show
'Rainbow'! BYE-BYE! (Goodby-ee!) You might wonder why we mention this in the
news section. Well, it's because 'Rainbow' is dead, and the Untouchables
fuckin' 'Rainbow Demo' is still not out yet!!!!!!!!!!
** INQUIRY INTO CONSOLE CARTRIDGE PRICES (29/12/92) **
Following on from a report by 'Which?' (Magazine of the Consumers
Association), the government has launched an inquiry into the high prices
of games cartridges for crappy consoles. This might have something to do with
the fact that the high prices have led people to make interfaces between
consoles and their STs, and download console software to disk drives!, thus
starting up a whole wave of software piracy on consoles!
** DOMINIK DIAMOND LASHES OUT! (2/1/93) **
Dominik Diamond, the dynamic dickhead presenter of dipstick games
players show 'Gamesmaster' has put the fear of God into all pirate games
stalls with his reasoned and incisive comments about software piracy. Naaah,
but he did managed to look an A1 class prize tit! Priding himself on not
buying any pirate software, he said: "Let's face it: most of this software
doesn't work...". Yeah, well, we can tell straight away that you don't buy
ANY pirate software at all, DD!
<Source: Glasgow Evening Times>
** 'SUPER FALCON' = FALCON 040 ? (15/1/92) **
This is good! And we thought the Falcon 040 and rumoured 'super Falcon' were
different machines. Well, now it appears they aren't....
