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Pure Bollocks Issue 22_004
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PURE BOLLOCKS #22 NEWS DESK
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DATELINE: 19th Jan - 27th March 1993
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** SUPER FALCON =/= FALCON 040 (19/1/93) **
And you thought we were the projected Falcon 040 and 'Super Falcon' were one
and the same as we said in our last issue? Well, OK- we were wrong, but it was
a strong rumour going about the place! The 'Super Falcon' is supposed to have a
68030 processor, which means it'll be a souped-up Falcon 030! It will have
similar features to what should appear on the 040 though, and there is talk of
an attempt to tweak it up to 25Mhz like the 040, though they might abandon it
if it costs to much!
** CRAZY CRAZY PRICE CUTS! (BUT NO CASE!) (19/1/93) **
Now this is really really unbelievable! The Falcon 1 meg 030 might take a price
cut to -300- when it's launched in bulk! I presume the reason it'll be so
cheap is because it -won't- be selling in it's mega-ST style case!! Aaarrrgh!
The 4 meg version will also take a price cut- to 500 maybe? It'll make a lot
of first time Falcon owners who bought their 1 meg for that price a bit sick
I'd guess!
** UNTOUCHABLES DEMO PREVIEW BEING SPREAD! (21/1/93) **
Well, we haven't heard much from Mat recently, but we HAVE seen a preview of
their demo. This was a preview, first seen at the Ripped Off Party, of the
loader for their "Cheese And Biscuits" megademo, which loads a demo screen on
the left hand side of the screen, and has Gameboy-style graphics which you can
actually play, all whilst playing a module! But this preview has since been
spread by persons unknown as a "Gameboy Emulator"!! OK, it might be easy to
mistake since you can either play Tetris or Space Invaders on it, but I'm sure
people might wonder what the big letters "LOADING" on the left hand side are in
aid of!!
** INQUIRY INTO 'NETWORK TRASH' SERVERS (24/1/93) **
One of our contacts has informed us of the progress of an investigation by
Glasgow University Computing Science Department into servers operated by
Network Trash. This group, as reported in PB #21, has successfully been running
networks under their noses for a couple of years now. However, we had reason to
suspect that they were starting to take a more determined stand against NT, and
what we have heard so far confirms that there is an official investigation into
NT, and it appears that those in charge (Apparently including Phil Wadler and
Nick Nei) are frustrated at the lack of progress in catching anyone, to the
point that they are trying to make an example of two students who have nothing
to do with the group.
The story (as far as we understand) is that one of the students found a
ramdisk NT server on one of the computers and downloaded the software off it.
Then on another day, a lab demonstrator noticed him using ResEdit (a shareware
resource editor for the Mac), and asked him if he had permission to use it. (He
had.) Then James Jecocke, who was taking part in the investigation, was called
in and asked a search of the student's disks. (This is actually illegal!) The
student nevertheless let them check his disks, and the software from the
RAMdisk server was found. The student protested his innocence, and since there
was quite obviously nothing to say otherwise, he was let off with merely
writing a crawling letter of apology!
However, this was complicated by the fact that someone -seen- -talking- to
this student was also called in for questioning! He must have had a weak
bladder or something like that, because he broke down in questioning and
blubbed to nearly everything they tried to pin on him! We've still to hear
what's happening to him.
There have been rumours about of an investigation since mid-December when
the last NT server was shut down. Genie of NT had suggested he might set up
another server during the holidays, but due to these rumours had decide to err
on the side of caution. When he heard about the latest events, he told Pure
Bollocks: "If they're this desperate to get someone, then it's just as well I
was so careful!" The staff comittee minutes, previously available to all
Computing Science students with an email account (At the current moment, all
students except first years.), have now been hidden, an indication that all
staff talk on this matter is now top secret.
** ATARI ADVERTISE FALCON!! (26/1/93) **
Aaaarrrgh! I can't believe it! Guess what I saw in ST User in pages 2 & 3! A
double page spread advert for the Falcon 030!!! Even more amazing, it was done
by Atari!!! Will wonders never cease!!!
** NO HUTCH IN ST FORMAT! (26/1/93) **
Just after we launch PB #21, we hear that ST Format has a new editor. Her name
is Paula Richards, and she's been promoted from Features editor. No word as yet
about what happened to the hugely unpopular previous editor Andy Hutchinson! As
for what Paula has done to ST Format- well, she appears to have cut it down a
bit! There's only one cover disk, and the magazine doesn't appear to be as
thick as usual! There's also a slightly more reasonable attitude taken to some
subjects- there's an advert asking for contributions to an article about demos!
This feature will be in the 'April' edition (which will be released at the
start of March in Britain!) so we'll tell you more about that!
** FAST TURN OUT HEAVIES FOR TV BUST! (13/2/93) **
Another bust has taken place in the Barras. This one was different to the
others so far in that TV cameras and reporters from Scottish Televison (the
commercial regional channel for Central and West Scotland) accompanied the
raid, and so FAST decided so up the 'profile' a bit by pretending to be much
more powerful than they actually are!
Previously in busts in the Barras, an item of software would be bought from
the stall as evidence that they had been selling pirate software. The tack
taken this time was that a FAST officer would go to a stall accompanied by 6 or
so 'heavies', slap down a 'warrant' and demand to see the stallholders disks!
The legal basis of the warrant is a bit shaky to be honest, but it's hard to
argue when there's a few heavies around to enforce it! So FAST's actions were
not only draconian, but illegal and intimidatory! Again, every stall that was
open at the time was treated this way, even the 2 main PD stalls in the Barras!
Their customers must have been really surprised to see the stallholders treated
like shit by a group that claims to be in favour of legal software and have the
moral high ground!
This sudden change in tack for FAST busts is entirely for the benefit of
the cameras, given that the raid occured on Saturday morning at 11am, so that
the TV footage shot could be shown on the midday and evening news summaries.
There were even shots of one stallholder trying to resist the intimidatory
tactics of the FAST folk, and ending up on TV as a 'violent' stallholder. There
were also close ups of suitcases of disks, and people carrying a computer and
disks away. This gave the impression that a whole section of the stalls had
been busted. However, there was a small interview with one of the FAST officers
who said that not all of the Barras could be covered. In fact, only 4 stalls
were busted, most of the rest had already been alerted. Even of those that had
come in, the sight of six heavies following a man who was leafing through
various letters and looking at stall names was enough to raise suspicion!
The main source of the alert to stalls seems to have been the March edition
of ST Applications (published as usual, a week into the month before.), which
noted the rise in FAST activity, particularly the busts in Leeds and Glasgow
last year. It then said that the first bust of 1993 marked a "return to the
Barrowlands"!! But there was no bust- at least none at the time of writing!
Since countries outside Britain would get the magazine by the start of March,
this would suggest that if there was to be a bust, it would happen before then.
The article in ST applications notes that "more raids are promised" for the
Barras. We shall wait and see.....
** FORMAT FALCON STORY MADE UP! (20/2/93) **
Hee hee! We have heard from one of our contacts that the big ST Format feature
on the Falcon, which purported to be an in-depth feature on the Falcon ie
actually running stuff on it and looking inside it, was actually completely
made up! "Floormat" didn't really get to see a Falcon- all they actually got
was a detailed spec sheet and a couple of pics, and pieced their story together
using just that! And we wonder why there's a new editor now! ....
** BACK ON CASE! (27/2/93) **
Soon after we hear about the non-appearance of the mega-style case on the
Falcon 030, we hear it's back on again! Apparently, Atari have been talking to
their dealers, and their dealers are not at all happy at a major new multimedia
computer being sold in a crappy old ST case!
** SO SAD! (1) (6/3/93) **
Talk about disappointment! The "feature" on demos promised for the April
edition of ST Format turns out to be about a third of an A4 page long and only
features 3 demo coders! Two of them (Douglas Little and Billy Alan) are good
coders, the other- James Boulton- I haven't heard of at all, but we know he
takes 12 hours over 4 days to code a boring little "ST Format demo" screen I
could code in less than 2 hours!
** SO SAD! (2) (6/3/93) **
A couple of people have slagged off my slightly pessimistic stance on Atari's
ability to sell the Falcon. Well, I think it's been vindicated every time a
spokesman from Atari has opened his or her mouth! But there's also an
embarrasing band of apologists for Atari, so here's one called Derek Whitely, a
business lecturer no less, writing into ST Format:
" 'Why are Atari not marketing the Falcon?' people moan and in the next
sentence complain that they cannot get hold of one..... Precisely! What
would you do if you were let down by production and could not satisfy
demand? You would certainly not waste good money advertising it and
whipping up more demand you cannot satisfy."
Quite apart from the fact that Atari HAVE advertised the Falcon in ST User,
everyone know's why there's not been enough Falcons in Britain to satisfy
demand: they haven't made a finished version of the fucker to mass-produce yet!
So don't try blaming the production side of things!
"I suggest that when Atari has a reasonable quantity of Falcons in the
consumer case, they will advertise as much as they did in the early days of
the ST..."
We'd suggest otherwise- they'd need a lot more money than they appear to have
at the moment.
"...old figures show that Atari spent more on TV advertising than any other
computer-related company in 1988 and 1989!"
And in 1990, they don't spend so much and as a result sales of the ST, STE and
especially the Lynx start to dive! Anyway, what about advertising OTHER than
TV?
"In the meantime they will continue to sell all the Falcons they can in the
old case to real enthusiasts. What a move that is, eh? They either wait
until the middle of the year to get any income at all from the Falcon or
alternatively they sell x thousand in an old case to people who cannot
wait. How to make money out of something that is, in reality, not
finished!"
So do you still say Atari were let down by production, eh? Selling something
that's not finished, eh? What a move that is, eh? This says a lot about your
view of marketing!
"I am a lecturer in marketing and would recommend anybody who looks at they
way Atari are run that it is a prime example of how to stay in business."
Well, Forbes is a very well respected US business magazine, and says the
complete opposite, and you can't really have looked very much at they way Atari
are run if you think they know how to run themselves! So go and stuff that up
your lecture notes!!!
** GROUP NEWS (14/3/93) **
As seen in the letters page, the demo crew Tour De Force have disbanded, and
most of their members have joined a sharware games crew called Diget. We've
seen a copy of their latest game, called "Meld", and it's a pretty good
strategy game! We've also been told that Agrajag has left Blue Harvest and
joined Digitech, and indeed one of our contacts says that he's been seen around
Phoenix PDL saying words to that effect.
** MORE FLOORMAT FIBS! (18/3/93) **
As reported above, DML of TPT was featured in ST Format's miniscule feature on
demos- in fact he was the only one that appeared to be quoted. It was reported
that he used Devpac 3 as an assembler, and he was quoted as saying: "There are
some faster assemblers, but none are as easy to use. Demos are an ideal way to
learn how your ST works. To produce a game you need to know about the ST's
internals." Shortly after this was published, DML called up one of the members
of Top Notch software (the group Wheee The Fibble is in), and was apparently
not too pleased with STF! Why? Well, he hadn't said the words he was quoted as
saying! In fact he hadn't even talked to Floormat!
** POOR OLD DML! (20/3/93) **
It can't be his month! Apparently DML was working on some top secret Falcon
games for Atari. One of his contacts, who had just got a Falcon, asked to see a
preview of them. Douglas agreed, as long as his contact did UNDER NO
CIRCUMSTANCES give copies of them to anyone else. So what does this person do?
He puts them on a bbs, and adds a text file claiming HE did them! Don't let
anyone believe this wanker, it was definately by DML!!!
This is not the only person recently to have ripped stuff off DML's Falcon
coding exploits! Griff of Electronic Images was on the phone to DML recently
for a very long time on the subject of how to do a decent Falcon module playing
routine! Apparently DML told how to do it step by step! Then suddenly Griff
brings out "his" latest module player with super duper Falcon playing
routines!! Hmmmmm.......
** SCOTTISH PDL GETS FALCON! (20/3/93) **
Glasgow Barras stall Phoenix PDL has officially announced in it's catalogue
that it is now in possession of a Falcon 030 4 meg with HD, making it one of
the few PDLs in Britain that has one- even Caledonian has apparently not got
one yet! They are reported to be testing software with it to see what works and
what doesn't.
** CONSOLE PIRACY? WHAT CONSOLE PIRACY? (25/3/93) **
The crap magazine for teletext tossers with consoles, Digitiser has said that
it might be actually posible to pirate console games! What, have they finally
discovered that you can download cartridges onto disks, and that there have
been console pirate bulletin boards going for almost a year now?!?!? Nope,
they're only talking about fake cartridges! You sad bunch of complete
tossers...
** WHERE IS THE 1 MEG 030 GONE? (27/3/93) **
There's been lots of reports of 4 meg Falcons going around, and according to
the last issue of ST Report Online, the number of 4 megs being shipped across
is steadily increasing. But where is the 1 meg, the Falcon that we had timed
this issue to coincide with? We've scoured the networks for any possible rumour
concerning the 1 meg 030, but the only news we managed to get was from Silica
Shop, who one of our contacts called, and got someone telling them that it
would be available in "a couple of months"!!! Now this might have been a
clueless PC user, but it's better than the news we've been getting so far about
it, which has been.... Well, fuck all!
The lack of news about the 1 meg versh has prompted a nasty rumour going
round: that the 1 MEG FALCON DOES NOT AND WILL NOT EXIST! Now, we haven't heard
anything seriously to confirm or deny this, let's just say.... we don't know!
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UP OUR END- Demos we got whilst in production
SENTRY- Nerd House (Nuthouse Revenge)
CHAOS- Ambience
INNER CIRCLE- Music Demo 2
SYNDICATE- If Pigs Could Fly
FIREHAWKS- Copy Party Demo
FRAGGLES- Bird Mad Girl Show (?)
OVERLANDERS- Ventura Demo
OMEGA- Grotesque Demo
WILD BOYS- Dreamzone
and finally....
The "Walking Bird" demo- our first ever Falcon Demo!
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