mOdmate - 17:35 29 October 2018 #

Text:

POMPEY PIRATES #112
Yeah! It's this naff old piece of code
again... well, I've used another of
those ripped MOD files you see! Anyway,
I've at least improved it a bit so you
can't complain, can you? Can you? Yeah,
I suppose you probably can. Just be
glad it isn't the starfield menu again!

Please excuse the rather out of date
ramblings you are about to read, this
menu was delayed for over three weeks
during testing...

I've already said my bit about Sadman
Hussein and those Serb scum, the frogs
are being very quiet at the moment,
I've already mentioned Antionia de
Slag and David Mellor... what else is
there to moan about?
THE OLYMPICS!!!!
Yes, now there's something to moan
about all right. Why was it that the
BBC decided we needed constant coverage
of a bunch of junkies?? Edd the Duck
being the British team mascot more or
less summed up the worthiness of this
sporting event to appear on TV!
And how was it that a sprint race that
lasted 30 seconds at the most managed
to take up 15 minutes of prime time??
There was enough hot air being produced
to float a fleet of air balloons!

I suppose I could answer a criticism I
know people are making of us at the
moment, i.e. the speed at which we get
the menus out. Well I am the only
person doing any coding, cracking, etc.
on the ST in this group you know! Not
only do I have to crack the games, I
then have to pack them (during which
time I cannot use the computer for
anything else of course, roll on the
Falcon), then I often have to type the
docs, put a menu together, I'm dealing
with various people through the post,
testing the menus myself (except for US
testing), etc. etc.!! It gets so I'm
sick and tired of even looking at an
ST, let alone doing anything with it!
Of course, menus aren't the only thing
I do, there are also the games that
never appear on menus, and they also
take up time, and often delay a menu
because I tend to get non-menu material
out of the way first. As I've said a
million times before, you can either
get the games the day they're released
and be lucky to have a working version,
or you can wait a week (or three) for
the PP menu in which case you'll have
full docs, a decent trainer, a version
which is almost 100% certain to be
working perfectly and a nice Syd pic on
the front!!
The delays involved in getting this and
menu 111 out were mainly down to U.S.
testing - sometimes I think it would be
faster to post the menus to America
rather than go into the 'lucky dip' of
trying to get Sparky and PP Sledge to
catch each other! A certain person and
his friend may be interested to know
that had I released the menu at the
time he wanted me to, one of the events
in ISC would not have worked, so the
testing IS well worth the time!

Now, greets go to...
Special FX (especially Jam), Agent X,
Neil G., Daryl, Raistlin, John Panic,
Quatro, Frosty, Ferris Bueller,
Teddystacker, Cynix, Wacky Jacky,
Jolly Roger II, Superior, D-Bug,
Lemmings (especially Pele), Unity,
Elite, Mad Vision.

Oh yeah, if anyone who has written to
us at the sorting office address is
still waiting for a reply, this will be
due to one of the following:

1. We haven't actually got your letter
yet, we only pick them up every two
months or so.

2. We're getting round to it!! I know
Genie has managed to lose a letter from
some guy who was offering to code for
us - Penguin I think it was - don't
worry guy, I kept your address (because
I know what a forgetful sod Genie is)
and he should be contacting you soon,
if he hasn't already done so.

3. You are one of the countless lamers
who has sent a letter along the lines
of 'send the latest stuff on the
enclosed blank disks' and not even had
the courtesy to include a SAE. All such
people: say goodbye to your disks, cos
you ain't getting 'em back!!

Oh great, Rescue 911 has just come on
TV! Now for the delight and enjoyment
of British TV viewers, we can be
voyeurs to Americans in distress. And
good ol' Captain Kirk presents it!!
Of course, it always seems to end
happily ever after... "Yes officer,
that's the man that blew up my house
and killed my family, but the lady on
the other end of the phone when I
dialled 911 sounded so gorgeous I
married her and we've had sixteen kids,
so it was all for the best really."
It's strange, but all these successful
rescues seem to happen in places that I
(and no doubt many Americans) have
never heard of. I suppose if they did a
story on a typical urban 911 call then
it would be rather boring: "911, please
hold." But my kids are being sliced up
by a murderous robot! ' "Please hold,
and while you do, here's some music."
Oh god!!! Help meeeee!!! ' "All the
lines to the emergency services are
busy, please hold." Aaarrrgghhhh!!! '
"Thank you for calling 911. Have a nice
afterlife."

I was just about to put some jokes in
here and I had four or five in mind,
but they were all racist, extremely
sick or a bit risque, after all I know
kids read these scrollers...
Hey kids, see those square plastic
things lying around on the desk. Did
you know that they make great frisbees?
Go on, try it! Throw a couple of them
at your parents!

I'm absolutely dying for a kebab at the
moment, but I'm currently trying to
lose some weight so I can't have one.
It's driving me crazy! Only yesterday I
actually enjoyed eating Ryvita bread!!
For anyone who hasn't tried it yet,
it's a cross between cardboard and
plaster, with less of the taste of
either. The packet goes on about it
being based on 'traditional Viking
bread'. Well... this could be a
possible explanation for why the
Vikings rampaged across Europe raping
and pillaging. They were looking for
decent bread!! Do you know how many
calories there are in the average bar
of chocoloate? Around 300!!! I used to
pig out on 3 or 4 150g bars of Galaxy,
which must be around 3000 calories in
total, and then I'd be down McDonalds
eating at least a 1/4 pounder and a
Chicken sandwich. Now I'm down to a
couple of slices of Ryvita with a bit
of cheese on top... it's working, but
sometimes I think I'd rather be a fat
bast and enjoy pigging out all the time
than go through this torture!!

Anyway, enough of this rubbish, I shall
hand you over to a guest text typer, a
friend of mine who owns an Amiga.

Oh, he can't type. Pressing fire on the
joystick a lot was a valiant attempt at
producing some text though... Okay,
we'll try again shall we?

Ah. He says that the ST hasn't crashed
yet so he's confused and doesn't know
what to do. Come on matey, have another
go...

Nope, it's no good. He's too scared to
touch the keys, he says he might pass
on a virus that he got from his Amiga.
Okay, we'll hand the keyboard over to
Genie, currently the proud owner of a
PC (486 of course)...

Wibble wibble, can I keep this ST? It's
so lovely, I have to use this horrible
computer of 1970's vintage and it's
such a pile of steaming jobbies... go
on, let me have this ST, PLEASE, I'll
give you a thousand quid for it! Oh
this GEM desktop is so great, I've got
this thing called WINDOWS and it takes
up four thousand megs of hard drive
space and I need twenty gigs of memory
to even display the mouse pointer...
and as for the games, crikey!! I see
you've got Epic on two disks. On the PC
it takes up seventeen million megs of
hard drive space and takes four weeks
to install. And then it doesn't work!
Back on the ST when I wanted to upgrade
the memory I just had to slot some more
chips in and maybe do a little bit of
soldering, but with the PC I can add
all the memory I want and it doesn't
make any difference, I've still got
640K unless I fiddle with memory
DRIVERS for a week or two in which case
maybe one program in a hundred will
realise the extra memory exists, and
will then say that there isn't enough!!
Boo hoo, I wish I had my ST again...

Well there you have it. If people will
insist on 'upgrading' to a computer in
which even the words are stored in
memory backwards, they can expect to
end up with a right dog's breakfast of
a machine. The best thing to do with a
PC is start a nuclear war with it, then
at least all the PCs would get zapped
by the EMP and we could all start again
with a decent processor, like, for
instance, completely off the top of my
head, with no bias whatsoever, a 68040!
This might take a little bit of time
after the holocaust, but I'm sure it'd
only take humanity a couple of millenia
to get back to our present tech level
from where we'd end up after a nuclear
war... it'd be worth it to get rid of
the PCs.

WRAP!

POMPEY PIRATES #112
Yeah! It's this naff old piece of code
again... and no, there isn't a false
wrap on this menu.
Oops!
WRAP!