KiwiArcader

Good luck with the magazine Carl. It's quite different to OoPA when it comes to creating new rather than just preserving existing content so I hope you and your staff do well in your new venture. Remember, it's just as much about having fun creating it with a good group of like minded people as it is about the sales numbers.

The .99c price must be USA only as in New Zealand the purchase price for issue 18 on the iPad app is currently $4.19 and the 1 year subscription fee is $14.00.

Unfortunately due to a recent law change in New Zealand the use of torrents can result in crippling fines/loss of internet service if a copyright complaint is made, no matter what type of file it is. As a result hosting services like Megaupload are a lot easier to deal with in that tracking you isn't as easy via HTTP. It's a bit of a bummer for those people not interested in paying a subscription fee but at the end of the day the files are still available for free users .. you just have to deal with the wait period in between grabbing files. I also have a Filesonic account but as broadband usage limits over here are rather paltry I've been concentrating on Megaupload as I have had no issues with them for over two years now and it saves doubling usage for a single issue.

As you may be aware I am scanning my collection of ST Format magazines and making them available over at http://www.oldgamemags.com As part of the restoration I am scanning the cover disks seperately, background erasing then adding them onto the covers to create a magazine that looks like it would when you brought it at the shop. An example of an issue I am editing at present is ...... However, I am missing a lot of the cover disks that weren't provided when picking up copies of the magazine second hand etc. Does anyone know where I can source scans, preferrably in 300dpi resolution... of the cover disks? Any help appreciated .. Kiwi

Today see's the second to last issue or Atari ST User available ... that being issue 105

Next one up ..... ST Format issue 53 ... the "Falcon" issue ...

I had an Amiga 500/1200 and still have a 1040STfm and 2 STe's with 4MB RAM and I believe games simply ran better on the Amiga computers. Unfortunately, both companies mismanaged their way into oblivion with incremental upgrades to their products that cost too much, or still required 3rd party add-on's to get the best out of them. Ultimately though, they failed to heed the signs from the IBM computer market where open expandability, better video displays and the pure horsepower of Intel processors were starting to make a difference. I sold my A2000HD simply because as a flight sim lover it just sucked lemons playing any sim on that using digital joysticks when compared to my 386DX-33 & analog joystick playing Chuck Yeager's Air Combat. But for all of that I still have my Atari's (even if I don't use them) and no Amiga's. Why? Maybe because I loved my A800XL and as such still love the Company that made what I consider to be the best computer ever made.

Man shipping to EUR is pricey. Mind you I am in the process 40 issues of NGC magazine sent from Switzerland to New Zealand and that's $200+ so I guess it's about right. Those Byte's are REALLY BIG mags!!. I'd offer to take them (surface shipping to NZ should be a lot more reasonable) but I am seriously backlogged on all the mags I currently have yet to scan (1500+ mags at last count).

I was wrong. After checking through my collection OGM brings you ST Format issue 71

Next up is ST Format issue 70 and possibly the latest issue I have in my collection of this particular magazine. Available now over at OGM

Excellent stuff!! I love anything Atari so more than happy to have them hosted on my site my friend. Another ST Format issue is now available on the site, that being issue 67, the first incorporating Atari ST Review, and the first time in the market place where ST Format is the sole remaining Atari publication.

ST Format issue 13 and ST Action issue 58 have now been added to the site for those interested in these old mags. I have procured dozens more of these and will be getting onto scanning them on a more regular basis.

I am looking for the 'ESC' key for a Mega ST keyboard as I got the computer minus that one key. If anyone has a dead mega ST keyboard for parts and can provide me with that one key I'd really appreciate it. I have 2 STe and 2 STf models and the keys are certainly different to the Mega keyboard so they don't fit which is surprising with Atari being into reusability and all.

Sure. But when you look at ZinC, Nebula, Modeller you do wonder if someone could build a software bridge to take advantage of a standard, say Direct X? That way hardware itself is less relevant but you get rendering benefits for those games where the GPU has the processing power to make a better job than CPU emulation. I'm thinking Voodoo emulation here with games like Gauntlet Legends/Cruisn USA here. I cannot program at all and it was just a comment more than anything. As I said ... it's the greatest software ever created. Doesn't mean it shouldn't move with the times though.Emulating the software is great but MAME programmers have been doing very little lately with lots going silent/MIA. Maybe going with hardware abstraction might bring some new programmers in?

Oh yeah ... tried NullDC with the 360 Xbox wireless pad and she's running sweet. My Firestorm is now confined to the parts bin

Pleasuredome is the best way of grabbing MAME stuff as far as I am concerned. Never had an issue with getting the stuff over there via torrents. WHich reminds me ... I'm a bit out of date on the whole MAME thing so maybe I should hop over there to see what's new.

To be honest I never really noticed much difference between a standard and an optimised build. Maybe I wasn't playing games that benefited from the optimisation. I even tried the 64bit build and noticed nothing much although the MAME guys like R Belmont produced numbers suggesting huge improvements on one or two underlying arcade code sets (a namco game engine comes to mind). In my opinion pure CPU horsepower is the only way to get MAME working better with some games. Until they get off the "pure emulation" perspective and start look at using graphic card/DX horsepower other emulators are better for many arcade games. Still the greatest open source software EVER created though

Hahaa.... EGM eh? That would be interesting if they decide to release digital mags. I just hope they're better quality than the crap Retro Gamer and Games tm mags Imagine released where the pics have been de-rezzed sooo much to make a small download that they look like utter crap. Seriously, why can't publishers release a high quality version for those prepared to download one for their iPad as well as the small size file for people using phones etc? Beats me ... let's just hope EGM don't take a leaf out of Imagine's book and do the same or they won't be getting any of my money.

Amen. Amiga and Atari were about the games/software for the 68000 era. If people want to play with that stuff without the hardware issues to deal with just get Amiga Forever and you're good to go. Analog joysticks and joypads rather than the digital versions.... far better mice than the Amiga originals ... no worrying about rotting batteries(A2000) or leeching caps (A1200's)... there's a lot of reasons to go that path. If you need to run an emulator to run the stuff then it ain't a real Amiga in my mind. Amiga One's are a toy. And an expensive one at that. Now a minimig ... that sounds interesting because of what it is

Does anyone really know where Commodore would've taken the Amiga past the 68060? I don't really consider Amiga's based upon PPC truly Amiga's as such but that may just be because I came into the Amiga scene as an A500 owner and left it as an A1200 owner. I certainly think the sell off to Escom then Gateway and everything with the PPC era was effectively the end of true Amiga's as we know it. To my mind it's not much different than calling infogrammes Atari. They didn't make Gauntlet or Crystal Castles arcade games or the wonderful A800XL so to me they just dilute the Atari legend by continuing to use it. Same here with the Amiga name.

With these and all the Atari mags/books etc you're insane dude. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Considering both machines are way out of date and both are defined primarily by their games and not applications of the era (sure you can DTP on one of these but seriously who would want to?) I find it funny that people want to ask whether to go with one or the other, especially when talking about Amiga OS4 which is PPC based and not really comparable to the original Workbench anyway. If I personally were asking which one to go with it would be on the basis of which one provides the best experience of computing in the late 80's/early 90's. If that were the case I'd probably have to go with the Amiga given the superiority of the hardware to original ST's and the fact that the STE didn't get a lot of software written to take advantage of it (I think ...) If that was the case I'd go with a big-box A2000 rev.b and be happy with it. I personally don't equate newer iterations AmigaOS with Amiga anymore. It really doesn't do anything Linux/Windows/MacOS don't do. I'd rather run a high spec PC with Amiga Forever and AmigaOS 3.9 than try and obtain the whacko hardware of the PPC era Amiga's. But that's just me.

ST Format issue 047 is now available at OGM

Cool ... I'll try it out. I was using a Firstorm gamepad which required Xpadder and I just kept using it for everything even after I got the Xbox controller. Didn't re-read the doco's so didn't realise the new one was supported directly.

Yep ... there's a few of these keymapper things out there. I am just used to Xpadder. The main point of my comment was NullDC emulator seems a little better than Demul from my playing with them but needs additional software if you want gamepad support and both work fine on Win7 We don't know what his setup is failing on due to a lack of info.....