| NEWS |
You may yet see Ronald Reagan or Madonna on your micro!
Spitting Image Productions is searching for a software house to write a game based on its satirical puppet hit TV show.
The company isn't sure whether the game would be in the arcade or adventure mould but John Blair, one of its directors says: "We have had discussions with a number of software houses but haven't given the licence to anyone yet."
Blair went on to say that Spitting Image would have a 'tight' control over any game and would dictate the way in which it would appear.
It won't appear this year but with plans to produce another Spitting Image television series, and a spin-off programme featuring the royal family, the game could be launched late next year.
The Spectrum 128K+2 may have slipped quietly into the retail stores but the Sinclair jinx has struck again. Already a significant number of customers and programmers are complaining vociferously about quality control.
One not so proud owner of a +2, Paul Sharpe of Shrewsbury in Shropshire, has already had two machines and is about to pick up a third. He says: "The first one was pretty bad. There's a lot of colour variation and parts of the screen which have no Bright on are displayed as bright. The problem could be with the modulator."
The same problem was found by John Heap of programming wizards Denton Designs: "I had to return one machine and the screen problem occurred on the machine I've got now, but it's since settled down a bit. The main problem was that the attributes appeared to split in half."
RAPS!
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A number of visitors to our stand at the last ZX Microfair had similar complaints but also mentioned that some games would not load. This appeared to be, not a software fault, but rather a problem that could be easily corrected by changing the azimuth alignment of the tape head in the 128K+2s tape unit.
The problems have a very familiar ring to those of us who remember the problems that occurred with the very first batch of Sinclair Spectrums which arrived in the shops four years ago.
No one at Amstrad was available to comment on the symptoms being experienced.
WIMPS hit the Spectrum! An icon-controlled operating system - similar to Digital's GEM on the Atari ST - is launched this month by Spectrum mouse maker AMS.
MAX provides icon control for a wide range of Microdrive management operations. Files can be renamed, deleted, dumped, copied, listed, executed from Basic and have their status displayed. Cartridge sectors can be examined or altered and there is a help facility and a note pad. A control panel allows you to alter Border, Paper and Ink colours.
MAX will be available on Microdrive only, will work with keyboard, joystick or mouse and will cost £14.95. More info from Advanced Memory Systems, Warrington.
Beyond's Star Trek and Dark Sceptre two of this year's hottest releases - have been delayed until next year.
Beyond is, however, adamant that the late releases - a significant blow for the company - are not the result of programmers bickering over money, or rumours of problems within the Telecom's Software division's hierarchy, following the departure of label manager Francis Lee.
According to new Beyond spokesperson Tom Watson, "The problem is we licensed the Star Trek title through Simon and Schuster in America, not directly from the TV company Paramount and so everything we has to be approved and that takes 21 days. The ST version will be finished before Spectrum Star Trek, around Christmas - although because of approval we don't know when it'll be released. I wouldn't want to put a date on the release for the Spectrum.
"We could cobble together a version of the game and rush it out but we want to do it properly." Very laudible sentiment, that, especially after the Superman debacle.
As to the rumours in the trade press of problems, Watson commented: "Nobody here knows anything (sic) and it wouldn't make any sense. We've concluded a substantial deal with Ariola for marketing in West Germany and anyone who thinks we've got cash flow problems should have seen the cheque for £¼m that we received as up-front payment from Ariola."
Meanwhile, Mike Singleton, Star Trek team leader, has dropped work on his other project, Dark Sceptre, to concentrate on Mr Spock's ears.
Consult, the programming team which produced the music for Fist II and Asterix for Melbourne House, has taken over the program which still requires a great deal of work. David Kelly, (no relation to SU's editor - aarrgh, there's more than one!!), one of the six strong Consult team, says: "Mike approached us in April to do the sound and music on Dark Sceptre. Now we're doing the Spectrum version of the game and any conversions."
Ever wanted to know how a sardine feels? You should have been to the 20th ZX Microfair. Despite the absence of Amstrad and the Spectrum plus 2 it was a huge success with over 3,500 people trying to squeeze into the Central Hall, Westminster at the same time.
Getting in the ZX Fair mood |
Gilsoft, which achieved instant fame with The Quill adventure creator for the Spectrum demonstrated three new programs: Professional Adventure Writer (PAW) and Press for the Spectrum, and The Quill Adventure Writer for the QL. The QL program, is similar to its Spectrum cousin but is specially designed around the QDOS operating system. The Press, for the Spectrum, compacts Quill text databases so you can squeeze more locations into Ram.
PAW, however, drew the biggest crowds at the show. It's a professional quality extension of the original Quill and Illustrator programs. The result is an adventure compiler which produces an almost endless variety of screen layouts, graphics with intelligent computer generated characters and a full text parser.
CCS, the strategy software company, re-emerged after a long period of silence with the Spectrum 128 version of Napoleon At War. Melvin Lloyd-Jones, managing director of the company is keen to produce more 128 specific games. "War games take up a lot of memory, so the 128's extra memory is very useful. People are beginning to switch from the 48K machine to the 128K machines. Soon we'll be able to produce just 128 games."
Swift Disk demonstrated a IM disc drive for the Spectrum costing £149.99 including interface, power supply and lead. More info from Swift Disk, Southampton.
Astracom had a new modem, the AC1000, on show. It costs £166.75 and offers 300/300, 1200/ 75 and 1200/1200 baud speeds, auto-scan, autodial and auto-answer. Details from Astracom, Swansea.
Rumours of the QL's demise were quickly scotched as visitors swarmed through the door of Central Hall Westminster. Pyramide has a new graphics program - full review next month in SU - which goes beyond the simple screen designers on the market. Graphics Toolkit takes the images you've created with other graphics packages and merges them together. You can lay several images on top of each other, stretch parts of an image and move component images around.
Liberation Software showed off its new QL compiler, the Liberator - full review next month. Gap Software came up with its desk-top publishing program Front Page while Sandy and CST demonstrated their new QL compatible computers.
All the exhibitors we talked to reported a rush of interest which showed that the ZX scene is in its second childhood. The next Microfair will be the 21st and, according to organiser Mike Johnston, anniversary celebrations will be held on December 13.
Turn music into a TV lights show with your Spectrum and a novel 12 inch single by new band Le Lu-Lu's.
The record contains a computer program on Side 2. Simply record the program on to cassette, Load it into the computer and Run it. Then play the band's music - also on the record - through a stereo system, synchronise the onscreen patterns produced by the computer program with the music and, according to record company Possum Records, you've got a pretty convincing sound-to-light show.
The band's three members are; Yo-Yo the lead singer. She's largely concerned with the band's image. Her male counterparts are Dr J, responsible for the computer part of the record, and Grey, who's into robotics.
Although they'll take any gig they can get their main money spinner is performing with robotic teasmade's and plant pots in other peoples living rooms.
The record will soon be available through most record shops for around £2.99. Should you want to know more about Possum Records, they can be found at London NW2.
Some things never change. The rumour mongers are out again. Since the departures at Telecom Soft - Francis Lee from Beyond, Tony Rainbird from Rainbird and Barry Lewis from somewhere at a higher elevation - there's been lots of speculation in the trade press of Telecom closures.
Whether there is any foundation in these rumours or not it's certainly intreguing that all the big mega-corps like BT, Virgin, Argus and Ariola have completely failed to wipe the floor with the home grown software firms like Ocean, Elite, US Gold and Hewson.
Since the big boys moved in two years ago, they've made remarkably little headway considering their combined muscle.
Argus in particular bought labels left, right and centre - Quicksilva, A'n'F, CCS, Bug-Byte - and has spectacularly failed to do anything impressive with them.
Now look how successful Amstrad has been on the hardware front in about the same space of time. That, I think, is an interesting comparison.
The good news is that since the launch of the 128K+2 things have been going from strength to strength - it's by far the best buy for any new computer owner.
There's even been an up-surge in demand for Spectrum software. In the run-up to the summer C64 owners, for the first time, bought more software than Sinclair owners. But they didn't for long. You and your Spectrum are now back on top - where you belong - and look like staying there.
Talking to software houses it's interesting to see how their perceptions have changed. At the start of this year they were all going flat-out for the CPC, believing Amstrad software was taking over. Now look at them! They've all changed their minds. Ask anyone now and they'll say that the Spectrum is the most important micro for them. All this is incredibly good news - it means that for the forseeable future all the best software will continue to come out for the Spectrum first. Look in this issue if you don't agree - there's StarGlider, Colour of Magic, Academy, Fairlight II and The Great Escape.
Interesting to see the new enthusiasm at the last ZX Fair, too. It's a long time since I had to move around a show by repeatedly swapping places with the person next to me.
And somewhere in all this Amstrad surprised even The City with an amazing £75m profit. Not bad for Big Al who started off manufacturing perspex covers for hi-fi gear.
CENSOREDDracula, the gothic monstrosity from CRL, is the first game to be dragged before the British Board of Censors. CRL bosses, in what seems like a grand and likely to be successful marketing ploy to sell more games, hoped that the game would receive an 18 X-rated certificate. Unfortunately, either the censors are made of strong stuff or the game wasn't frightening enough and the game only received a 15 - anyone over the age of 15 can buy it. According to CRL spokesman Ian Ellery, Dracula still makes history. "Nobody's ever gone to the board of censors with a game. This could mark a new trend in computer gaming." The Spectrum version of Dracula may not be as blood thirsty as its 15 certificate pretends. The Commodore 64 graphics helped to push the censorship board to its verdict but the Sinclair version is unlikely to include such dripping gore. Ellery says: "The digitised graphics take up a lot of Ram so we'll have to see what sort of graphics we can put on the Spectrum. It may be that we'll drop them altogether." In which case the whole exercise will have been all hype and maybe even a complete waste of time. |
Dixons has finally decided to tow the Amstrad line and bundle the Spectrum 128K+2 with Sinclair titles and a joystick which Boots and WH Smith have both rejected.
For £159.95 customers can expect the dedicated but much criticised Sinclair joystick together with the five original Sinclair software titles offered with the machine (see SU November). Dixons has, however, added two double cassette packages to the bundled software. One cassette includes lan Botham's Test Match with a datafile program while the other includes Odd Job Eddie and Witchfiend. Again, none of these titles are what you'd describe as enthralling.
WH Smith has - wisely perhaps - decided to sell the 128K+2 without the software at £149.95 while Boots is still offering its own software package of three selected US Gold titles together with the Cheetah 125 joystick.
PROGRAM CRIME BUSTIJK, the top BBC software house, now trying to break into the Spectrum software market, is covered in embarrassment. It's been forced to drop its first Spectrum release because chunks of the game's code had been pirated from Mastertronic's Spellbound. Harry Price, the author of the offending game, called somewhat ironically Crime Busters, at first denied the program was a rip off but Alison Beasely of Mastertronic says: "The first 50 bytes of both programs are exactly the same, the solutions to the games are almost the same, the character sets are copies and even our hacker trap is included in IJK's game." Beasely gave Price two options: "I told him to write an apology to us, stating that the game was copied." Price refused and, according to Beasely, she said, "In that case you'll receive a writ for fraud and infringement of copyright tomorrow. "After that he agreed to write the letter," concluded Beasely. Since their discussion IJK has withdrawn Crime Busters and asked distributors to return all stocks. Ian Sinclair, a director of the company, says: "We're an old software house, five years old, and we're extremely upset that something like this could have happened when we launch our first Spectrum game. It is the sort of thing that could happen to any software house - the market's got so big that we can't possibly look at all the games." Mastertronic received the game from SU staffer Jim Douglas. who, being a sharp lad, noticed similarities between Crime Busters and Spellbound. |