Freemint 1.17.0 and XaAES 0.999 have been released after a lot of work. There is also an ongoing project for a multilingual XaAES and finally a freemint wiki. They are very active at the MiNT front!
There’s a new version of MyAES released by OL. Looks very good!
Mikro is collecting interest about a new Noise party. It might be that we’ll get along with Sommarhack, Sillyventure, Outline four Atari Demo parties this year (that include 16/32).
The Atari forum is back online after some hosting problems.
Nature have fixed some problems in the Svethlana, ethernet device.
Saulot has ported Grafx2 2.2 to MiNT. Pixel artists go and take a look.
m0n0 has ported netsurf to MiNT. Internet users go and take a look.
Paradize have released a new game. Read all about it in this issue.
Saulot has also started an Atari coding wiki. Anyone with the necessary knowledge don’t hesitate to participate.
Reboot released Superfly DX [1]. Superfly was created by the Reservoir Gods for the Atari ST and Falcon some years ago. It’s a one button game, you fly a submarine through a tunnel and you have to avoid to hit the top or the bottom of the tunnel. Pressing the button letting your submarine rise and not pressing the bottom let it sink. That’s it. The Jaguar version is a complete rewrite and it has great graphics and a lot of modes.
At the outline there was also a preview [2] of Ladybugged by Jagware. A clone of Lady bug from the VCS (wasn’t that a clone of the Coleco version?). The game is once again very professional with great graphics and good sound, so we could look forward for the final version.
Outline Demoparty Press Release
Release Date: May 3, 2010
For immediate release
The Outline Demoparty Board monday announced the execution of a consent Cease and Desist Order by and among Digitale Kultur e.V., Köln, Nordrhein-Westfalen, a registered digital arts society, and Evoke Demoparty, Köln-Kalk, Nordrhein-Westfalen, a non-registered demoparty event.
A copy of the Order [3] is attached.
Bubble+ clone for the iPhone.
In the STOT round 12 of the actual 3rd season, we played Bubble+. It’s a Atari ST gem back from the good old days. We get a trackback from another blog to an interesting article about a mobile game called Ozone [4]. This is a Bubble+ (or Bubble Ghost as it was called originaly) for the iPhone. Great to see, that people not only remember the blockbuster, but also the great ones.
Xenon II T-Shirt
Some time ago I requested a Xennon II Megablast shirt. Now it’s available [5]. Thanks to Panayotis. I already wear it at the outline, and it’s great, and many people recognized it.
No Fragements 10 & 11 released by .tSCc.
Always proud to announce another released of a group like no other 🙂 This time, Lotek released 2 new No Fragemens CD’s:
Number 10 [6] is filled up with Diskmags.
Number 11 [7] contains the (Atari) Party archive 2007 – 2010
Kick Off v.1.0.4
Steve Camber well known for Dogfight on the Atari ST is for shure much better known for patching the Kick Off 2 binary again and again. Now the KOA v1.0.4 [8] is out. And this time with a revolutionary new mode. You could select not only if you want to use PBD (Penalty Box Dribbling), you could also choose Autofix and Trapfix.
AutoFix? – Select Yes to disable auto slides and auto headers by your teammates
PBD? – Select Yes to enable PBD mode
TrapFix? – Select Yes to stop traps turning into slides
Now the gameplay is less hectic and also a little bit different.
Frank F. won the Hessian Champs
Frank was the best player of the greatest tournament [9] in Hessen for years. He won the final against Volker B. 11-2. Beside the final there were a lot of suprises during the tournament and beside Cornelius, who was a bit unlucky that day, everybody got a cup or prize.
Frank got some cups
RMKO TV
The Rhein-Main Kick Offer now have their own Miro Video Channel [10]. There you could see famous and not so famous Kick Off heros playing their matches and screaming around.
WGL TV
The Wiesbaden Gaming Lab, the Rhein-Main based retro meeting for real hardware usage and real food ordering, now also has a Miro Video Channel [11]. Really worth to watch because of the funny comments.
Rhein Main Spiele Club
In the Rhein Main area there seems to be more interest in meeting each other. After the highly successful HomeCon, a website [12] called Rhein Main Spiele Club (Rhein Main Gaming Club) is now online. Let’s see if there will be some people who participate. At the last HomeCon some people from the Cologne area said, they are interested also to host a event inspired by the HomeCon. This would be great, to have such events in more metropolitan areas.
Go to http://www.dhs.nu to download the long awaited 20 years mega demo for the Atari STE.
Happy birthday bloody grey beast 🙂
Attackwave (Falcon)
Our team member SSB released a new game for the ATARI ST called Attackwave [1].
Attackwave
There was also already a STOT round [2] where we played Attackwave. SSB sponsored 3 handmade 3.5″ disks with Attackwave a as kind of limited edition of the game for the winners.
Retro Shirts
Some greek based people do a nice Retro Game Shirt Shop at ebay [3] . If your personal favorite game is not covered by the shirt collection, don’t hesitate to request a motive. I for example miss Speedball and Xenon II.
Retro paper toys
Simon Phipps released Rick Dangerous & Switchblade paper toys [4].
Vintage Computer Calendar updates
MugUK (Mike) has joined the Vintage Computer Calendar [5] team. Mug will maintain the UK based retro meetings. Because there are a lot, it’s good to have him in the team.
The calendar is now also connected at:
Atari Shop NL [6]
Computer Party Maniacs group at Facebook
Castle crisis competition at the Homecon IV
At the forth issue of the Homecon [7] meeting Wizard/WGL organized a Castle crisis [8] competition played on a Atari XL.
The next issue of the Homecon is soon (23th of January). There it is planed to play Blip [9] on a Atari XL.
Kick Off WC 2009
A lot could be written about the Kick Off WC 2009 [10] in Voitsberg / Austria, but you could simply watch this nice video
Gianni T. once again won the title, even that the final against Sypros P. was very close. The chances are good that the next WC will be in Düsseldorf / Germany.
e-jagfest
As you could read in the e-jagfest article in this issue, there were some great competitions. Here a video of the European Checkered Flag Championship
Scandinavian Kick Off Championship
The Scandinavian Kick Off Championship [11] took place in Lund near Malmö in the south of Sweden. The trainings were held in Copenhagen / Denmark, so it was a kind of multinational event.
Beside the training and the tournament, there was also a fine evening meal in Malmö where the WC qualification game Denmark – Sweden (1-0) was broadcasted.
STOT season #3 started
The STOT started season #3. First game was Paradroid 90. This season all games were elected before the season started. Have a look at the season plan [12].
In Melbourne at the Mace (Melbourne Atari Computer Enthusiasts) meetings, they now regulary take part in the competitions, which is a great motivation.
With the beginning of season #3 there is a partnership with Atarimania, so that the players get some more information’s about the actual game and if possible a download offer.
Abbuc Bundesliga season #7 started
Bunsen / Reno^WGL reported:
With River Raid we played a true classic (fist game ever on the German index for games that glorifying violence 🙂 as the first game of season #7 of the Abbuc Bundesliga. To short the game a little bit, we started at bridge 50.
The winner [13] was Yellow man. 2nd was Dietrich the Champion of the last season.
Bavarian Kick Off Championship
At the Xzentrix we had our traditional Bavarian Kick Off Championship [14]. This time we managed to get more players to take part than last year and we had a new champion: Frank F.
Frank F. and Thorsten B. playing Kick Off 2 during Xzentrix 2009
Links
1. Download Attackwave
2. Attackwave STOT round thread
3. Retro Shirt shop
4. Simon Phipps paper toys
5. Vintage Computer calendar
6. Atari Shop NL
7. HomeCon website
8. Castle crisis at Atarimania
9. Blip at Atarimania
10. Kick Off WC 2009 stats
11. Scandinavian Kick Off Championship thread at KO-Gathering
12. STOT season plan
13. Abbuc Bundesliga season #7 round:1 results
14. Kick Off Bavarian Championship thread at KO-Gathering
Maybe some of our readers will ask themselves the question: “Why the hell these guys do another magazine?”.
The answer? Not that easy I would say. SSB got the idea to do a magazine based on a blog on our way to the Outline party this year. The idea was born in a discussion about what should we do after there will be no Alive diskmag (http://alive.atari.org) any more.
We think that there is enough going on in the retro scene that should be mentioned from an atarian point of view. Also we should look over the edge of our SM124 monitor and write about other stuff that is not Atari related at the first view. Because we know, that everything that is digital is in a relationship to Atari. (We simply believe, that Atari computers are the hubs of the world. 🙂
So basically if something has a connection to Atari computers and systems, it is suited to get dealt with in the magazine.
Also the blog engine offers us the possibility to have a much deeper communication with the readers. Simply leave a comment under each article if you like, that is pretty easy we think and we will appreciate your feedback a lot.
So we hope that you like our little magazine, and if there will be some kind of feedback, we hopefully could realize some of our further ideas.
We will welcome any new authors and articles. Just contact us and we will find a way to make it happen.
Some informations from other publications, worth to spread around.
Lotek 64 [1]
Beside the great articles in this great Fanzine, I saw an interesting article [2] about a project called KEEP. They got a lot of euros from the European Union to create a platform to be able to save old digital data (like games, games and … games 🙂 from being lost. Interesting.
What was of interest some 20 years ago. An not very objective view of some old computer magazines
ST Computer #3/89 (Germany) [3]
One topic is the question which Basic to use on the ST. Yes, at that time, when we were bored fighting the amigians and always have to answer the question, if the ST could scroll or not, it was pure fun, to fight in the small group of atarians, which Basic was better. Omikron or GFA a question that will always be part of the Atari spirit I think.
Another article covers Revolver. This application let you divide the ST in 8 parts, and each of them could work separately, if it’s loaded. The question behind these kind of programmes was: “Do I really need multitasking” or “What the hell is multitasking”. Well in the end, even today, I never heard a lot about using multitasking on the ST. Even under mint, when it was finally available, it was to slow compared to the PC standing next to the ST on the desktop already.
Also covered in the mag, was an article about a Sinclair QL Emulator. Yes we loved this machine, it was one of the few machines that was even more unsuccessful than the machines Atari produced after the ST. But to be honest today, I say, that the QL is a very sexy machine, but I never heard much about the OS or programmes for it.
ST Format #2 (UK) [4]
On the cover there was a demo of Blood Money. An all time great, and we enjoyed playing this game in the STOT #2/7.
In the magazine there is a interview with Sam Tramiel who wants to fight Nintendo. A funny guy our Sam 🙂
In the games section the important releases were:
Blood Money
Kick Off 2 !! Yes really it is 20 years ago the best footie game every was released
Quarz. We should play Quarz in a STOT. I’m sure it’s one of the forgotten gems.
ASM #9/89 (Germany)
In the readers letter section, it was interesting to read, that already in 89 people discuss if games should be political correct or not. When I see advertisements for ego shooter and war games today, I see that this discussion was not successful in the last 20 years.
The most important reviews were:
Silkworm:
A great shooter at that time. We played the game in STOT #1/13
Forgotten Worlds:
The games failed in one of the pools for the best capcom game. I bought the game back in the days, and was satisfied with it, even that I would say today, nothing special.
Stormlord (Hewson)
Can’t remember this one, the graphics looks nice, have to give it a try.
Rick Dangerous
This review is legendary. The tester does not like the game at all, and while worldwide people got crazy playing the game, in the ASM it butchered. Also the sequel got bad grades, but we all played the game.
Super Scramble Simulator
I always wanted to play the game. Also have to give it a try.
RVF Honda
A great bike racing game. Still a very playable game with a very good AI.
Kult
I never understand the game, but I know that it is a good one. Maybe I find somebody who explains it to me.
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