This encyclopaedic reference guide reveals to you a lot of small - oftentimes unimportant - bits of knowledge about various things that have, in some way or other, to do with the history of ST NEWS, as well as with the personal lives of its main two editorial staff members. This guide contains almost 300 entries, which were thoroughly revised and updated in June 2001. They were last subject to a minor revision in January 2003. In April 2007 I removed all external links - many of them had died, and I couldn't keep things up-to-date with well over 300 external links...
1st Word Plus. Not all that excellent but wonderfully sufficient for the needs of ST NEWS, that's GST's word processor, "1st Word Plus". In 1994 the program name got bought by Compo, which subsequently released a program called "1st Word Plus 4" which was nothing at all like the original and, highly likely, totally unrelated coding-wise. The original started off at the end of 1985 as "1st Word", a freebie word processor for the new Atari platform. In 1987 it got released commercially as "1st Word Plus". The latest version was 3.20TT (1990). No matter how fancy and doubtlessly superior "Le Redacteur" and (oh yes!) "Protext" were, the ST NEWS editorial staff could never quite leave this trusty old program. Besides, the ST NEWS page viewer only exactly 'understands' the "1st Word Plus" format.
These days, GST is called Greenstreet. I don't think they do a lot of "1st Word Plus" updates anymore.
42. A really significant number that nobody will insult you by elaborating upon here.
666. 1. Another fairly significant number, known mostly from quotes like "666, 999...the quotation marks of the beast" and "668...the neighbour of the beast".
'No, we're no closet Satanists. You shouldn't believe everything you see and hear. Nor, I might add, the things you don't!' (Richard)
2. The computer scene nickname of >Mark van den Boer.
92 million light years. The distance between >Earth and >Sucatraps. Coincidentally (not quite), this is the same distance as that from Earth to the planet that Kim Basinger was supposed to come from in the not-quite-a-hit film "My Stepmother is an Alien". It was sometimes - wrongly - mentioned to be "22 million light years".
Abrahamsen, Gard Eggesbø. (b. 19 Aug. 1973) The life cycle of the Minute Microbe, from tiny Norwegian hacker via Canadian married man to divorced person living in the US of A, later in Aalesund and now above the Arctic Circle, >Norway... First came into contact with the ST NEWS editorial staff during their visit to Norway, the Norway Quest. Stayed into contact fervently through means of >Crazy Letters ever since, and wrote various articles for ST NEWS that inevitably seemed to have to do with girls or loneliness. In 1995 he joined Stefan at >Gray Matter. Married 30 Mar. 1996 to Bethani Lynn Snakenberg, separated in December 1997. He has in the mean time (shock horror!) shaved off his moustache and allegedly even cut his hair! He worked with computers at Eclipsys, after that company bought out Gard's previous employer, MSI, in June 1999, and since late 2000 moved back to Norway where he is still very much working in the Internet/IT side of things. Throughout his years on the Internet he's made MP3 music and maintains the totally cult Scriba.Org. His server, incidentally, used to host most of Richard's sites.
ACN. Acronym for "Atari Computerclub Nederland", the people who published the biggest (and, so it seems now, only) Atari magazine in the Netherlands, "Atari Nieuws" ("Atari News"). It's published in tabloid format. Richard worked there for two months in 1991 - April and May - after leaving >Thalion. In October 1993 he bought his >Falcon 030 through them, and in January 1996 a P60 PC. He has had 42 (it's true!) articles published in "Atari Nieuws" since its start in December 1987, most of them software reviews and virus-related articles. It is quite unknown whether they still exist, especially since email missives remain unreplied to.
Adams, Douglas. (b. 11 Mar. 1952, d. 11 May 2001) Writer of the amazingly funny and increasingly bitter five-part "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" 'trilogy'. He's been a major influence on the writings of many of the people who ever wrote for ST NEWS, especially its editorial staff. ST NEWS Volume 3 Issue 6 (November 1988) was >dedicated to him. Early 1998 a computer game was released that he wrote (or at least designed), "Starship Titanic". In May 2001 the unsettling news reached us that he'd died of a heart attack while working out at his California home. A great loss. A compilation of essays and half-written chapters was released in the summer of 2002, entitled "The Salmon of Doubt". It is not half as bad as the previous sentences might imply. There actually might be a "Hitchhiker" film in the pipeline.
Aenigmatica. A Dutch coding crew that ST NEWS has luckily managed to steer relatively clear of (although, arguably, no Dutch Atari user actually ever could). They have a really interesting and highly complex infrastructure, which can't possibly be elaborated upon here. They are known primarily through their "Genysis" demo and the "Genysis 81 track remix". Their last demo, before they turned, well, virtual, was "Genysis III", arguably the biggest megademo ever released on any computer system (and, one might add, fittingly distributed on an 8" floppy disk).
'I have always hated their guts. Every single crew in the Netherlands has at least one member in Aenigmatica, or an ex-member, or whatnot. They infiltrate everything. And the worst thing is that they always got greeted in demo scroll texts before me, damn it!' (Ri...er...Anonymous)
Aiwa. Make of portable radio cassette recorder (type HS-J202) purchased by both members of the editorial staff on 31 Dec. 1988. Even before they got used frequently (to produce >Crazy Audio Tapes, create verbal accounts to be processed into >Real-time Articles, and >interview people) they had already obtained the lovingly devised nickname of >'Headache Obliteration Device', because of their property of being able to annihilate headaches simply by being used. In 1997, Richard's machine suffered from a loose connection near the microphone jack, which after a lot of procastrination eventually lead him to take it to a shop for repairs in September 1998. Unfortunately, it seems that an ST NEWS afficionado must have spotted in while in transit back from Aiwa to the shop, because that's the last time it was seen. It is officially lost. After a lot of hassle and a lot of stubbornness from his side, Richard got a replacement in July 1999 - a Sony WM-GX670. Although this device has more features than the original (autoreverse during record, for example), it's simply not the same. His heart is broken, and his headaches persist longer than ever.
'We were feeling rich and decided to go out and buy the best that walkman technology had to offer. We walked to this shop and entered. What we said was something along the lines of, "we'd like to buy the most expensive walkman you have." The man didn't take us seriously at all, so we eventually took our business elsewhere. There we decided on this amazing stereo-record Dolby B noise reduction auto-reverse beastie with radio and rechargeable battery built in. And it may sound like a coincidence, but the shop - Sony Center - went broke within six months after that. We believe there's a deep significance.' (Richard)
Alcoholica. A demo crew consisting of various members of even more famous coding crews. Members seem to have been Toxik Fetus Eater (Spaz of >TLB), Genital Grinder (Sprog of >TLB) and Coprophagic Necrocannibal Eviscerator (Tanis of >TCB). It is unclear whether they ever produced anything, but they reared their ugly head in particular at the >STNICCC in 1990, when they abducted Fury of Legacy, The Person With The Most Smelly Feet In The Universe, in exchange for a ransom of D-cups.
'That was a really bloody event, a dark and, thankfully, censored stain on the history of ST NEWS.' (Richard)
Alfa Romeo. The make and type of the vehicle (black like the night, an Alfa 33) driven by Stefan during the years in which the ST demo scene thrived. It has transported many famous ST demo scene personalities and saw many, many hours of highways on trips to places like Düsseldorf (Atari Messe), Stuttgart, Stockholm, Trier and London. It was later replaced by a Lancia Delta, after the Alfa had done four years of trouble-free service.
Alida. A cute girl living in the 'dorm' that Richard lived on from July 1988 to September 1989. Stefan developed a major crush on her on New Year's Eve 1988-1989, and was romantically involved with her until May 1989. She turned out to be less than cute after a while, but is prominently present in several issues of ST NEWS. Volume 4 Issue 1 (February 1989) was >dedicated to her. She was the 'creatress' of the >Divine Dessert, Chocolate Mousse.
'Considering the fact that her surname was 'Moene' (an archaic Dutch name for the devil) and that 'Alida' is also the name of a Norwegian rubbish dump site, I might have known earlier.' (Stefan)
Amazing Cracking Conspiracy (ACC). Originally a highly dubious group of computer freaks on the >Commodore 64, founded 13 June 1985, founding members Antiware, Cronos and Cyborg (yes, A, C and C, it's not a coincidence). On the Commodore 64, their efforts primarily centred around 'ripping' music tunes from games. Originally an independent outfit, around the switch of two of its members to Atari ST it quickly joined the >Flash Cracking Group, and after that the >Desaster Area. Independent once again after some time, well, it had shed whatever illegalities had once shrouded it, and concentrated on making a variety of stuff for Atari systems. Aliases got dropped, with Antiware leaving entirely to concentrate on a career in computer sales. Prime products of the now one-member outfit were ST NEWS and the ">Ultimate Virus Killer". In the beginning of 1991 it joined the >Quartermass Xperiment. July 1996, the ACC folded in upon itself with the release of the final issue of ST NEWS. There are plans for a new outfit on the PC platform, though not of the same name. These plans have been around since 1995 and still haven't materialised.
Ambulor Eight. A fictional planet in the >Cronos Warchild universe on which there is the >Hospital for the Very Very Splattered.
Amiga. A collection of electronic parts and pieces of plastic that was referred to as 'computer' by some of the more misguided people who did not see the glory of the ST. Subject of much ridicule by ST owners, yet it provided a breeding ground for many talented coders. It wasn't that bad a system, really, but many of its users were, well, let's be frank, utter and total twats.
Amiga Demo. A demo coded by the legendary >TEX, to show that the ST was no worse than the >Amiga. The scrolling text in the no-right-border-for-a-bit screen, incidentally, was written by Richard.
Anagram. A simple version of an anagram (i.e. the reversal of the letters) is a thing that is often done with names of friends to come up with names for characters in stories. Most particularly the "Populous" review (written in 1989) has quite a few Norwegian friends' names in them, anagrammised, as well as that of "Populous: The Promised Lands".
Ants. Small, incredibly workaholic six-legged arthropods which don't like aardvarks.
'Somehow, there seems to be a really strange obsession with ants and >honey in quite a few of the stories featuring >Cronos Warchild. If you're a psychologist you might know why and how, but fact is that it's there and that I haven't got a clue where it came from, although I have a theory about the honey myself.' (Richard)
Appledoor, Klarine. Fictional girl encountered by >Cronos Warchild for a mere figment of a nanosecond in the story ">Oh Yeah II", when they flew past each other, both at close to light speed. He instantly fell in love with her.
'The name was based on "Klarine", which was the name of a girl that our friend >Gard Abrahamsen had at the time fallen in love with, and "Applegate", surname of blonde sex-icon Christina. The story, "Oh Yeah II", was inspired entirely by a >Crazy Letter by Gard in which he explained that he had once again fallen in love with some girl. Crikey, he was worse than I'd ever been, and that was quite a feat!' (Richard)
ArtiST, The. One of the highlights of Stefan's early 'career' was the winning of a Dutch national computer-kid competition organised by the Dutch government to promote interest in computers. He won one of the top-ten prizes with his group of tools he used to create games on the >C-64. One of these tools was a drawing program with all sorts of funky options like 'fill', 'ellipse' and 'line'. Remember, this was in 1985 or so when "Deluxe Paint" still had to be invented. So when he got his ST, one of the first programs he started writing was a drawing program. This never really got anywhere until he got >"GfA Basic", and then things started happening. "The ArtiST" was born and released in the Public Domain by the 'Elektronikaland' computer club in >Den Bosch. It turned out to be quite a hit and Stefan carried on working on it. People actually sent him suggestions and comments, and eventually "The ArtiST+" came out. Then an outfit called ">Low Price Software" ran by >Hubert Van Mil, the president of the '>ST Club Eindhoven' wanted to sell "The ArtiST" at ST conventions and shows in The Netherlands. By this time the program had become sufficiently sophisticated to be called "The Professional ArtiST". It sold quite a few copies and made Stefan some modest money. It sold the most at the "HCC Dagen".
Atari. Need this really be elaborated upon? It's kept alive on sites like Rich Davey's "Little Green Desktop", Hallvard Tangeraas' "Atari Launchpad", Nicolas Bales' Atari QuickFAQ, Roy Goring's Atari Web Ring, Atari Net, the Atari Historical Society and the Dead Hackers Society. Atari will never die. Well, actually, it's gone belly up a while ago, but the spirit will live on.
Avalanche Magazine. Short-lived pseudo-underground heavy metal magazine, published in the Netherlands but written in English, that Richard worked with from June 1994 to March 1995.
'It offered some great opportunities to meet all kinds of musicians, and got me some real breaks, like visiting the Wäldrock festival to >interview Gwar and Obituary. In the end I got chucked out because I, rather arrogantly, criticised some fellow writers' English and journalistic capabilities and firmly disagreed on the editor not wanting to publish my >Dream Theater interview because, and I quote, "Dream Theater is just a hair band who mimic Fates Warning, and Fates Warning are much better anyway, and Dream Theater is too soft for our target audience." His own Fates Warning interview did get in. The magazine, sadly, folded around the summer of 1995.' (Richard)
Back door. A word which has, despite what some of you may think, no kinky connotations whatsoever. Rather, it is a way to enable all ST NEWS >hidden articles in one issue in one fell swoop. Of course, individual hidden articles could be enabled by more or less intricate procedures, but an option was always built in to enable all of them simultaneously (as of Volume 6 Issue 2 only, unfortunately). The back doors always consisted of bits of text that had to be entered while into main menu mode. To make sure that it wouldn't collide with regular hidden article quest thingies, the user had to keep both [SHIFT] keys pressed while loading, until the "About ST NEWS" alert box appeared. Then the back door text could be entered, without [CAPSLOCK] or [SHIFT] pressed, and not forgetting any of the spaces.
|
Issue |
Back door text string |
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Volume 6 Issue 2 |
the unforgiven |
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Volume 7 Issue 1 |
i am satan's pleasure slave |
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Volume 7 Issue 2 |
|
|
Volume 7 Issue 3 |
my bong is bigger than yours |
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Volume 8 Issue 1 |
symphonaire infernus et spera empyrium |
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Volume 8 Issue 2 |
pure bollocks is pure bollocks |
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Volume 9 Issue 1 |
rectum-faced smeg-for-brains |
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Volume 9 Issue 2 |
d.b.a. magazine was here |
|
Volume 9 Issue 3 |
i love karin kessels very much |
|
Volume 10 Issue 1 |
congratulations to maggie's first five years! |
|
Volume 10 Issue 2 |
(had no hidden articles!) |
|
Volume 11 Issue 1 |
wouldn't you like to know? |
Bak, Steve. (b. 4 Apr. 1952) One of the legends of the ST, a nice guy and host and guide to Stefan and Richard during part of the famous >LateST NEWS Quest. Together with Pete Lyon, forming the >"Dream Team", he did some of the best games on the ST. He has a wife who thinks cinnamon shouldn't be put on bread, and two lovely daughter whose beds we could crash in during several nights of the Quest. Some of the games Steve did were "Goldrunner", "Dogs of War" and "Jupiter Probe".
'Needless to say, the daughters were located elsewhere in the house. They were aged around 10 or so, anyway.' (Richard)
Becker, Jason. (b. 22 July 1969) Guitar prodigy who recorded two solo albums ("Perpetual Burn", 1988; "Perspective", 1995) and two albums with Marty Friedman in Cacophony, as well as a David Lee Roth album ("A Little Ain't Enough"). His music really strikes chords in your soul. In 1991 he got diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease, a nerve disorder that eventually atrophies the muscles. It's lethal, usually within years, though scientist >Stephen Hawking has had it since somewhere in the sixties and he's still very much alive. Jason Becker impressed both members of the editorial staff very much. ST NEWS Volume 7 Issue 1 (January 1992) was >dedicated to him. Well over ten years later he's still hanging in there, which is a pretty awesome (and awe-inspiring) fact. Mid 2001 ought to see the re-release of "Perspective", with additional tracks played by Eddie Van Halen on there.
'Around the end of 1991 I read that Jason Becker had contracted that horrible disease. I was really affected by it, to the point of nausea. I immediately sat down to write him a long letter and asked if the next issue of ST NEWS could be dedicated to him. He sent back an autographed picture and said it seemed to him "a cool idea". He has since remained one of my most favourite guitar players. His second solo album, "Perspective", released in December 1995, is a momentous piece of work that nobody should be without, not if you like guitar music and neo-classical stuff in general. Jason is on my mind a lot of the time. His ordeal caused me to hate fate, or god, or whatever you call want to call it, whatever caused him, of all people, to get this disease.' (Richard)
Berg, Lucas van den. Light and shining example of the members of the editorial staff of ST NEWS, and Richard in particular. Lucas wrote the Crimson Column "walkthrough" stories for ST NEWS, starting with Volume 2 Issue 2 (April 1987) and ending in 1992 (although his peak lay within 1987 and 1988). He then lost touch with the whole thing, it appeared. His uncanny mastery of the English language (which he had studied at >University) was inspiring and a joy to read. A fervent RPG fan, his walkthrough stories often revolved around these.
Big Alec. Real name Gunnar Gaubatz (b. 28 Nov. 1973), member of >Delta Force and ST NEWS music programmer ever since Volume 7 Issue 2. For a complete list of the musical pieces he did for ST NEWS, refer to the article on >Jochen Hippel. Gunnar also wrote the music for various commercial releases, such as >Thalion's "Amberstar" and "No Second Prize". He has finished studying electronic engineering, has a PC, and enjoys being on the #atari channel on IRC.
B.I.G. Demo. Legendary demo released 24 Jan. 1988, conceived by >TEX and centring around a whole batch of >Rob Hubbard musical compositions capably transferred to the ST by TEX member >Mad Max. Definitely one of the best demos ever created on the Atari platform, featuring a then record-length (42 Kb) scrolling message and approximately 5 hours of rather excellent music.
'This is the demo I missed most when I switched to the >Falcon. Try as I might, I never could get it to work.' (Richard)
Bitmap Kid, the. Spiritual child originating from the Bitmap Brothers game, "Magic Pockets" (1991). In the introductory story for that game's review, the Bitmap Kid was borrowed and occurred as the one child of >Cronos Warchild and >Penelope Sunflower. He's viciously cool, and that about sums it up entirely.
Boer, Mark van den. (b. 9 Mar. 1965) Author of ST NEWS' Volume 1 and Volume 2 "MC68000 Machine Language Course". In 1989 he went to South America for a year, after which he came back to the Netherlands for about six months. During those six months, he bought Richard's classic old Atari 520 ST (with Cumana double disk drive and 1 Mb of memory) and sold him his Commodore 128D (which Richard sold in 2001, when a sufficiently good C64 emulator for the PC came along). That way, Richard could upgrade to a MEGA ST. However, not long afterwards, Mark got struck by the travelling bug once more and disappeared to Australia. He went around the country in an old American car for a year, seeing the sights, and eventually settled in Sidney, to work for MacDonald Detwiller, a company that writes satellite guidance software and develops communication systems for that purpose. In the summer of 1995 he moved to work for MacDonald Detwiller's Canadian branch. There, 30 Sep. 1995, he married Genevieve (née unknown). In autumn 1997 he started work in the Netherlands again, then in the UK for a while, but they settled back in >Canada again in 2001. In December 2002, Mark and Genevieve caused twins to see the light of day, Bettina and Adrian.
'Mark is the person who, together with Stefan, was the biggest peer influence on my life. Especially musically! Mark introduced me to Rush, >Queensrÿche, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, David T. Chastain, >Yngwie Malmsteen and >Dream Theater. I owe him, well, almost my entire musical taste.' (Richard)
Bong. Device first entering the ST NEWS editorial staff's consciousness back in >Commodore 64 times, when >Jeff Minter wrote the immortal words in his game "Sheep in Space": 'do you know what a bong is?' This phrase, repeated in an ST NEWS scroll text around the beginning of 1989, eventually lead to the >Extravagant English entering the world of ST NEWS. A bong is, to cut a long story short, a device used to smoke mind-expanding herbs without the use of cigarettes. Both Stefan and Richard actually got sent a bong as birthday presents from these Extravagant English. Stefan's bong was bigger than Richard's, which lead to the ST NEWS Volume 7 Issue 3 'back door' password text, "my bong is bigger than yours", which enables all >hidden articles in one go.
'These bongs were never actually used, but mine still serves as artefact in my room to raise the odd parental eyebrow.' (Richard)
Boudier-Bakkerlaan, Ina. The place where Richard lived from July 1988 to September 1989, at number 15-III. It was a kind of student 'dorm', housing 15 people (mostly, though not exclusively, students) who shared one big kitchen, two bathrooms and two toilets. It was fairly cramped, and the rooms a standard 3.5 by 3.5 metres. In summer it was too hot, and there was an all-the-year-through presence of gnats. On this particular floor, Stefan met >Alida and Richard met >Miranda.
'It was the first place where I ever lived, you know, on my own. I really let rip there. I studied Biology at the time, my first year, but never finished it due to general, well, demotivation. A nice period of my life. Everybody should have had such a period, but nobody would be proud of it. Incidentally, my ex-wife >Karin also lived at the Ina Boudier-Bakkerlaan, though at a different address and at a different spot of the fourth dimension, when I first met her..' (Richard)
Bubble Bobble. Truly addictive platform game released by the long defunct British company Firebird early 1988, followed later on by inferior games the likes of "Rainbow Islands". Both Stefan and Richard developed a keen sense of addiction for this game, though none of them ever got as good at it as Elin Hatlemark, >Ronny Hatlemark's kid sister. It has seen many a playing session during late nights during which ST NEWS was finished, together with ">Super Sprint".
Bus error / Illegal instruction / Illegal exception. Errors that occurred approximately 34,098,439,534 times during the development of ST NEWS, usually much to the howling frustration of Stefan.
Camphausen, Rufus. (b. 16 Feb 1948) Probably the oddest person, founder of Canopus Esoteric research, ever to write for ST NEWS. He was director of an Amsterdam meditation centre, and wrote a handful of articles for ST NEWS during its first year of existence. A typical example of one of his severely esoteric articles was the critically acclaimed "Hebrew on the ST", whereas he also concerned himself with numerology. These days he's really into things like Indo-Tibetan Tantra, Thai Phallic Worship, body adornment, the Yoni and the Mystic Mandala. These words seem (and are) wildly out of context, so check out his web site.
Canada. Second-largest country in the world, home of the Mounties and lots of bears. Stefan and >Mark van den Boer eventually went to live there. >Gard lived there for quite a while, then retreated back to >Norway.
Car dating. Unlike what you might believe, this has nothing to do with social contacts with cars, merely those in cars. It's a strange ritual in >Norway, more elaborately explained in the Encyclopaedia Norwegica.
CD-I. The machine that >SPC started developing for in 1992. Stefan recognised its game potential (it had a 68000 processor) and together with >Tim Moss he wrote "Alien Gate", a simple shoot-'em-up with sprite performance unprecedented for CD-I. A demo of the game prompted Philips to issue a five-game contract to SPC. Stefan got >Niklas Malmqvist involved to do the graphics and SPC produced a few games. The group disbanded when CD-I succumbed to the bigger games platforms. Tim went back to England and joined Argonaut software. Stefan worked for SPC for a short while longer and left for >Canada to work for >Gray Matter in February 1995.
Centerfold. Girl threesome (no pun intended) with musical ambitions in the middle eighties of the Netherlands. Richard and Stefan met them briefly during autumn of 1986 at a computer show in >Utrecht, where these girls were performing as part of the sales show of a computer brand that had hired these girls as well as a couple of dozen other pretty specimens of the 'weaker sex' to promote stuff. This company went broke a few months later (actual fact!). One of Centerfold's singer rumouredly committed suicide several years later, to be replaced by another blonde. Not long after that they disbanded.
'I had a couple of printed-out ST NEWS issues with me and one of them got signed by all three original members of Centerfold (including the rather delectable Rowan Moore). A lipstick print of Laura Fygi, one of the other members that later was to go solo, was on that particular issue as well.' (Richard)
Chadwick, Mel. The first (and only) ST NEWS reader that Stefan got romantically involved with. One of the >Extravagant English, her writings and those of her brother (Ashley) fascinated both Stefan and Richard. After Stefan visited their home town Chorley with >Tim Moss, a great friendship developed between her and Stefan. In one of Stefan's stories, she was one of the few to get >Cronos Warchild on his knees. It was in this story that the Mega Absorb Groin Protector (batteries not included) was introduced.
Chi-Chi. After >Natanga and >Nephilim had passed away, Stefan got another >hamster and called it Chi-Chi, after a small village in >Guatemala. Silver-gray and of superior intelligence for a hamster, Chi-Chi was much loved by Stefan and his friends. Chi-Chi was known for her/his/its kind of 'bridal veil', a fluffy fur thing attached to the bottom end.
Claessens, Math. The ST NEWS resident adventure solver. It started way back in 1986, and he's probably still solving adventures at the drop of a hat. It is believed that wizards or witches (or both) were among his ancestors, for else there would be no way he could solve all these adventure games (including Sierra-on-Line stuff and some role-playing games). He switched to the PC around 1992, because that was the place where a lot more adventures could be found. His accomplice was his son, Peter.
Coliac. A mixture of Coke (Stefan prefers real Coca Cola, Richard later preferred Pepsi Max) and >Plantiac. Known to soothe the throat, lift spirits and generally please taste buds. The term 'Coliac' is believed to have been coined by either Martijn Wiedijk (Lucifer, then of >SOD) or Alex Crouzen (The Nutty Snake - TNS - of the >Quartermass Xperiment and >Aenigmatica).
'Brraarrgghh. Wonderful!' (Stefan)
'Aaargargl. Lurvely!' (Richard)
Colombier, Stefan. The first official German distributor of ST NEWS. He actually took care of things neatly, even up to the point of finding a replacement - Guide Stumpe - when he switched to the PC platform. Stefan was into fractals and heavy rocks or something. He even contributed an article or two.
Commodore 64. The computer that started everything for Richard. It has 64 Kb of RAM (38911 bytes free), BASIC built in (rather crap Commodore basic) and the best sound chip in the world (the SID). Around the beginning of 1986, it was boosted with "SpeedDOS", several custom character sets and about 128 Kb of EPROM cartridges. Around Easter 1986 it had to be sold to be able to finance the Atari ST. In 1990, however, he bought back a Commodore 128D, which also has a 'Commodore 64 mode'. The year 2000 eventually saw the 128D being sold as well (through Dutch online auction site Ibazar, now Ebay.NL), what with C64 emulators for the PC actually being quite good these days.
I still play SID soundchip tracks regularly on my PC. They rule. (Richard)
Commodore VIC 20. After being taken to a computer show with Commodore VIC 20 machines showing off the latest games, Stefan was hooked. He spent the next couple of months delivering newspapers and frantically saving up money to buy a VIC 20 and started programming in BASIC. But soon it became apparent to him that most games he was playing were written in another language altogether. He acquired a book on 6502 assembly language and a memory monitor/assembler and started programming his first machine code (technically speaking his first assembly programming was on a Philips >Videopac, but that doesn't really count). The original VIC 20 had 3.5K of memory (about 512 bytes of that were used for the graphics, and you had something like 256 bytes in the cassette buffer), a crude but wonderfully noisy soundchip and about 22 characters across the screen could be displayed. Complete games could be written in the 3.5K; Stefan wrote his first action game in assembler called "Cylon Zap" ("Battlestar Galactica" must have been airing then). The father of one of his friends saw marketing potential and founded a company called "Ultimate Challenge Software", but it never really happened. Later Stefan wrote "Alien Gate", a "Gridrunner"-like shoot-them up. When the memory expansions started coming out (first 8K, later a whopping 16K), Stefan wrote a few adventures and a true game in 16K called "Moon Caverns".
Connie. Concetta by birth, a girl that Stefan met in >Canada. Many superlatives have been heaped on various women throughout the years of ST NEWS, but let's just say that Concetta is the One for Stefan. On 21 Jul. 1997 they got married.
Crazy Audio Tapes (CAT). After >Crazy Letters no longer seemed to suffice in the forever ongoing waves of communication between the ST NEWS editorial staff and the >Nutty Norwegians, the >Aiwa walkmen were used to create Crazy Audio Tapes. These were, generally, verbal versions of >Real-time articles, with miscellaneous noises (eggs frying, doors closing, the editorial staff singing a >Metallica song, perhaps the odd bodily noise) added. Approximately four or five of these tapes were made. All except one (which was sent to Bryan 'The Android' Kennerley from Wales, U.K.) were sent to >Ronny Hatlemark, pivotal point and centre of Norwegian nuttydom.
Crazy Letters (CL). Writings, often of epic proportions, containing anything from assembly code to deeply disturbing and perhaps chemically induced visions. Possibly the most perverted and also brilliant things ever produced with "1st Word Plus" (among them fake >real-time articles of Norwegian visits including >Cronos Warchild, a male Gro Harlem Brundtland and the Mørderöus Gnærhelm; a lot of Z88/MFP/68000 sanity interrupts; reli-nuts extolling Coke Cans, Empty Trash Cans and, indeed, >Empty Trashcans with Something in it; "K-Rhyme" poetry; fiction; Norwegian poetry; long stories involved girls, or a lack of them; appearances of canines called Chester). The table below contains a list of all preserved Crazy Letters ever written by members of the ST NEWS editorial staff. Recorded cases of the Norwegian replies are scarse, but their record-length effort needs to be mentioned: >Gard Abrahamsen, with the aid of his brother Jardar (who is just as insane) wrote an 846,830 byte Crazy Letter from May 5th to December 31st 1990.
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Author(s): |
Target: |
Size: |
Started: |
Ended: |
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Stefan and Richard |
61,224 |
2 days in April 1989 |
||
|
Stefan and Richard |
137,199 |
15-05-1989 |
17-05-1989 |
|
|
Stefan and Richard |
Norwegians |
479,887 |
12-06-1989 |
26-11-1989 |
|
Richard |
>Gard |
128,000 |
15-08-1991 |
04-09-1991 |
|
Richard |
Gard |
89,907 |
10-02-1992 |
10-02-1992 |
|
Richard |
Kai |
42,000 |
20-05-1992 |
24-06-1992 |
CRL Plc. An English software company, known for the release of several mediocre games and the distribution, from May 1989 to May 1991, of the "Atari ST Virus Killer" ("AVK", which is now >"Ultimate Virus Killer 2000"). Richard got the deal through >Niall McKiernon, and things went really great until they went into receivership at the beginning of 1991. Eventually, they disappeared from the business side of his life, owing him £ 1,800 that he never saw. CRL claimed to have sold over 20,000 copies of the virus killer, primarily versions 4.1 and 4.2.
Cronos. 1. Hamster owned by Richard, from approximately late 1992 up to his breaking up with >Miranda, when she kept the little animal. A short-tailed dwarf >hamster (Podopus rhoborovski), it developed a weird brain disorder at the approximate age of 1 which caused it to run around in ever decreasing circles, bumping into things. The vet refused to put it to sleep because it was 'so cute' and 'it doesn't suffer any pain'. It died a natural death in November 1994.
2. >Cronos Warchild (spiritual child).
3. Richard's nickname in the computer scene once he'd bought the Atari ST (some time before that, trivial fact alert, he called himself "Whizzkid of Apollo Software", quite pathetic). Although it might be really confusing, what with his spiritual child being called Cronos as well, the characters really have nothing in common, nor are they wishful alter egos of one another.
4. Name of the bassist/vocalist of >Venom, whose real name is Conrad Lant (b. 15 Jan. 1963).
DBA Magazine. Competing disk magazine, of Dutch origin, first conceived around October 1991, appearing to have ended somewhere in 1997. Editor was Sietse "Slimer" Postma, currently SMS operator at VNU Publishing. The magazine enjoyed great popularity in the scene, and had a more coder-oriented user interface rather than the plain GEM-style one of ST NEWS. The contents were more coder-oriented as well.
'I rather envied that coder-oriented style of theirs. ST NEWS was never much of a coder magazine after 1989.' (Richard)
Death. 1. One of the more interesting characters from the "DiscWorld" novels by >Terry Pratchett. As with most ST NEWS stories, inspiration derived from great novels was used to create our own instances of the character Death in some of the ST NEWS stories, most notably such efforts as "Obviously Influenced by the Devil" (part one). Death inevitable talks in CAPS.
2. Death metal band from Florida, lead by Chuck Schuldiner. Although rather plain at start, their later albums ("Individual Thought Patterns" (1993) and "Symbolic" (1995)) were technically brilliant masterpieces. Nonetheless, none of the people involved with ST NEWS were especially into them. This band has been known to do a tour without Chuck (founder, leader, singer and lead guitarist) once (?!). The band split somewhere in time, but 1998 brought them together again for a reunion gig at Dynamo Open Air. This resulted in the deliciously technical album "Sound of Perseverance", and the band seems to be more or less permanently together, with a side project (Control Denied) with a different singer. In 2000 Chuck suffered from a tumor in his neck, which was cured, until it reared its ugly head again mid 2001. Unfortunately, Chuck died in December 2001.
3. Name of a small (38 mm) statuette bearing a small crystal, sent to Richard as a Christmas gift (1990) by the >Extravagant English. It still has a spot in his room.
'May I take the liberty to bestow upon your beings enormous amounts of humble thanks for giving me the ultimate Christmas gift, i.e. Death.' (excerpt from Richard's letter to Ash and >Mel, dated February 1991)
4. State of no longer being alive (nor kickin').
Dedication. A great way to say you like someone or something. Ever since Volume 2 Issue 3, roughly, every issue of ST NEWS has been dedicated to someone. Sometimes they were girls, sometimes musicians, sometimes writers. A complete overview of dedications can be found in the table, below.
|
Issue |
Dedicated to: |
Reason: |
|
2.3 |
Maryse |
Richard had a crush on her |
|
2.5 |
Richard...need I elaborate? |
|
|
2.6 |
Willeke |
|
|
2.7 |
Willeke |
|
|
2.8 |
Willeke |
|
|
3.1 |
Willeke |
|
|
3.2 |
Jimi Hendrix |
Excellent guitarist |
|
3.3 |
Evelien |
Stefan's girlfriend at the time |
|
3.4 |
Model (Page 3 girl), babe, "Vixen" game cover girl, had a competition in this issue |
|
|
3.5 |
Astonishing writer |
|
|
3.6 |
Great humorous writer |
|
|
3.7 |
Both Stefan and Richard had a hopelessly intense 12-hour crush on her |
|
|
4.1 |
Creatress of the >Divine Dessert, who was kindof Stefan's girl- friend at the time |
|
|
4.2 |
Great musician |
|
|
4.3 |
Nutty >Norwegians |
Great friends |
|
5.1 |
Because his family had been host to the ST NEWS Norway Quest |
|
|
F.C. |
Richard's girlfriend at the time |
|
|
6.2 |
Cult programmer |
|
|
7.1 |
Guitar talent extraordinaire; news had been read he was struck down by Lou Gehrig's Disease |
|
|
7.2 |
The Prime Metal Band |
|
|
7.3 |
Whistler Courbois Whistler |
Great Dutch guitar rock band, also had an >interview in this ish |
|
8.1 |
Stefan |
Departing editor |
|
8.2 |
Holst & Hatlemark families |
Hosts to the Second Norway Quest |
|
9.1 |
Released on the day Adams had his 42nd birthday |
|
|
9.2 |
Steven Spielberg |
Directed "Schindler's List" |
|
9.3 |
Excellent writer of fun stuff; interview in this issue as well |
|
|
10.1 |
New Prime Metal Band; interview in this issue as well |
|
|
10.2 |
Katja Kladnik |
'>Lucky Lady', sadly departed virus author |
|
11.1/2 |
Richard Krajicek |
First Dutch Wimbledon champ |
Delta Force (DF). German coding crew that started off as crackers, really, but later became legitimate. Original members were New Mode (now married, first son born November 1997, working as a research assistent at the institute of parallel and distributed high-performance computing institute at the University of Stuttgart on his PhD thesis), Chaos Inc. and Slime. By the end of 1990 they were joined by Questlord, and even later they were joined by Sammy Jo (ex->TLB), >Big Alec, Flix, Wizzcat, >Lord Hackbear and, reportedly, Oxygene (also formerly of >TLB). They are known to have been compared to an ever-expanding, living freak show. To their credit, they have done memorable megademos such as "Syntax Terror" and "Punish Your Machine".
Den Bosch. The city where Stefan's parents moved in the late 70's, also confusingly (to foreigners, that is) spelled 's Hertogenbosch. In a small teenage bedroom at the Negende Donk, Stefan's first coding took place on a Philips >Videopac games machine. The same teenage bedroom was the stage of many hours of coding, including most of the ST NEWS programming.
Desaster Area. 1. Hacking group containing German and Dutch crew members, one of the top crews in the early days of the Atari ST. Quickly joined by the >Amazing Cracking Conspiracy in 1986, but nothing useful materialised or happened otherwise. Desaster Area is believed to have been mostly hot air, wrapped in arrogance.
2. Unbelievably loud rock band, featured in part 2 of >Douglas Adams' increasingly inappropriately named "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" trilogy, named "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe".
Digital Insanity. Stefan's nickname in the Atari demo scene. It existed before he became involved in the ST NEWS process. He joined the Lost Boys (>TLB) around the summer of 1990, and wrote screens for their "Mindbomb" demo. He also participated in the game they did for >Thalion, >"A Prehistoric Tale".
Disintegrating Chair, the. The silent and always suffering witness and support of the posteriors of the ST NEWS team during many hours of ST NEWS issue-creating. Not built for such hardship, it was always in a state of disintegration, hence the name. This particular chair was bought as a set of two in the summer of 1988, when Richard went to live on his own. Its final disintegration was captured on film by the >"ST NEWS Home Vid'" in May 1989. Its counterpart managed to survive - although without a back support for most of the autumn of its life - until approximately early or mid 1994.
'My butt sorely misses that chair, occasionally.' (Richard)
DISTURB (Digital Insanity's ST NEWS Utility Rewritten Blatantly). After it had become apparent that Stefan no longer had the time and energy to actively participate in the ST NEWS finishing rituals, Richard needed some tools to do it himself. So Stefan wrote "DISTURB" - a tool to collect, pack, prepare and otherwise manage the countless documents and files involved in generating a disk for a new issue of ST NEWS. Most of it was written in 1990 and 1991, though Richard adapted it to the >Falcon early 1994. It uses "Pack Ice" to compress the documents, and then creates a huge file that includes all the articles as well as indices for the ST NEWS file I/O interface to access the articles as quickly as possible.
Divine Dessert, The. A.k.a. 'chocolate mousse', a uniquely delicious dessert made of molten chocolate and a whole load of other ingredients, one of which is orange liqueur, "Cointreau". It was introduced into the lives of the ST NEWS editorial staff by a girl called >Alida, early 1989.
Donaldson, Stephen. (b. 13 May 1947) American author of such momentous fantasy fiction trilogies as "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenent the Unbeliever" and "The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever". Amazing idiom and a fantastic imagination make this series of books - despite the rather unsympathetic main character - an absolute must-read. He also wrote a collection of shorter stories ("Daughter of Regals and other Stories"), a twin-book epic "Mordant's Need" and a more recent impressive science fiction series, entitled "The Gap series".
'>Lucas van de Berg introduced me to this, but Stefan eventually beat me to reading them all. Stefan seemed to have a lot more time on his hands. These are some of the best books I've ever read in the fantasy genre, together with "Lord of the Rings" and the two early Hickman-and-Weis trilogies.' (Richard)
Douglas Communications. English company of Stockport, Cheshire, founded at the beginning of 1991 by >Niall McKiernon of >Excel Software. Starting with version 5.0, they've distributed the >"Ultimate Virus Killer". The contract expired in November 1996. Douglas Communications have also distributed "EdHak".
Drag, the Insanely Witty One. Fictional character based almost entirely on >Gard Abrahamsen, formed by the reversal of his name. It was used primarily for various introductory stories for ST NEWS, especially those revolving around the Bullfrog games "Populous" and its sequel. The prime characteristic of this character is that he looks around in an insanely witty fashion most of the time, not volunteering any speech.
Dragonflight. Epic flagship game of German software company >Thalion, and actually the reason why the company got founded in the first place, early 1989. The game, not released until at least a whole year later, was designed and programmed by two leading members of >TEX, and the game deserved far better sales than, in the end, it got. Featuring beautiful graphics and animation, it was a RPG set in a distant world where the dragons used to be an intrinsic part of society but now no longer were. The quest to be performed was simple: Find the dragons. But it wasn't as simple as one would think. Although perhaps not quite in the same league as Lord British' "Ultima" series, it definitely came close.
'When Stefan and me visited Thalion, spring 1989, I got commissioned to write the background novel for this fantastic game. I was honoured beyond imagination. I've only written two fairly long fantasy fiction stories, and this was the first. It has an open ending, so I have this feeling that I might one day finish it, and do some rewriting as well. The story so far is almost 40 pages (over 15,000 words) long. >Miranda always reckoned it was the best story I've ever written.' (Richard)
Dream Team, The. Honorary name coined by the ST NEWS editorial staff during the >"LateST NEWS Quest" to describe programmer >Steve Bak and graphics artist Pete Lyon. Somewhere during this Quest, these were both invited to dinner by the ST NEWS staff, all expenses paid, to pay humble homage to everything they'd done for the Atari world.
Dream Theater. Fantastic band formed 1989 in New Jersey. Well, no, they were formed earlier, but they released their debut album, "When Dream and Day Unite", in that year. In 1992 they released the fantastic "Images and Words", and 1994 saw "Awake". Especially members John Petrucci (guitar) and Mike Portnoy (drums) are appreciated by Richard. Dream Theater is his favourite band by far, having knocked >Metallica off the throne they'd been on from 1988 to 1992. They made one of the finest albums of the previous millenium, "Metropolis 2: Scenes from a Memory" (1999).
'It was a dream come true to be able to >interview these guys in February 1995. They really are my number one band, and my first electric guitar is adorned by Petrucci's autograph, next to that of >Malmsteen! I got introduced to them by a guy called Ruud van de Kruisweg (occasional ST NEWS writer in the olden days) but didn't like them at all. Their singer sucked rock. That was early 1989. But in 1992, >Mark van den Boer let me listen to "Images and Words". They now had a new singer, the songs rocked, and the production was a lot better. I was hooked instantly and bought the album the next day. Been hooked ever since.' (Richard)
Drinknuts. One of the ST NEWSisms, words made up because there either wasn't a word in existence to describe the thing, or because both members of the editorial staff were blissfully unaware of such a word's existence. A 'drinknut' is, of course, a beernut. It has nothing to do with nuts who drink a lot, or 'crazitude' or 'nuttydom' in general. Needless to say, many a drinknut was devoured during ST NEWS finishings.
Dynamic Duo. 1) A small but perfectly formed demo crew from England consisting of 2 programmers (Marcus Lynn a.k.a. The Shadow and Matthew Augier a.k.a. Hitech). They produced four megademos: "Demon Demo", "Ultimate Demo", "Superior Demo" and the excellent "Imagination" demo disk. They won places in 2 out of 3 demo competitions at the >STNICCC in 1990 but are probably best remembered for their pink ST and 3 inch monitor. These days, Hitech runs his own business software company and Shadow heads a game development team writing PC games and 3D engines at Criterion Software ("Sub Culture" on the PC was their first title ). They have in 2000 each spawned offspring.
2) A German crew back from the >Commodore 64 days, of little fame in the ST scene.
Earth. Mostly Harmless.
Eclipse. Software company run by ex->Thalion employee Marc Rosocha, who was responsible for classics such as "Wings of Death" and "Wings of Death II", as well as "Chambers of Shaolin". After leaving the company in 1990 he started out doing games like "Monster Business". Later, Eclipse designed games for Jaguar and Playstation. Their biggest hit was (and is) "Iron Soldier" (and II, and III :-).
'Marc actually asked me to think of a name for his company. Because I was a fan of >Yngwie Malmsteen, who had just released "Eclipse", I thought of "Eclipse Design" or something. Erik Simon made an Eclipse logo and that's about it. Later it was discovered that there was already an old, little known company called Eclipse, but the name was kept anyway.' (Richard)
Electronic Arts. Company well known for 8-bit classics such as "M.U.L.E." and "Seven Cities of Gold", and later "Marble Madness" on the, um, >Amiga. A variety of famous music programmers of the 8-bit days work there now, including >Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway and David Whittaker. Martin Griffiths works there, too, as well as Leon O'Reilly (Mr. Pink of the Reservoir Gods) and Stefan.
Empty Trashcan With Something In It, the. Somewhere in late 1988 and early 1989, reading >Douglas Adams' books made the ST NEWS writers ever more crazy. And so it happened that, one day, various occurrences of the Extollers of the Empty Trashcan With Something In It came to life, spiritually entering the editorial rooms, chanting slogans, and flapping their >sandals. Obviously inspired by Hare Krishna and Zen followers, these articles just served to take the mickey out of religious nuts. The ST NEWS 'reli-nut issue' was Volume 4 Issue 3.
Enchanted Land. Game programmed by Nic of >TCB for >Thalion and finished autumn 1990. It was the first and last Atari game to feature 50 Hz (1 vertical blank) arcade action on a fully sync-scrolling screen in all directions. Without a doubt the best game on the ST ever, technically.
'Two little known facts of this game are the following. Nic thought of the name of the leading character, Khurgan. This was inspired by the baddy in "Highlander". And I thought up the name of the game, which was inspired by the song of the same name by >Sodom.' (Richard)
Estefan, Gloria. (b. 1 Sep. 1957) Rather lovely singer who was the model for one of the >Ambulor Eight nurses working in the >Hospital for the Very Very Splattered who re-appeared in a handful of >Cronos Warchild stories. Between the nurse and Cronos there appeared to be a strangely platonic relationship that, for the most part, Warchild was completely unaware of.
'I don't know why I picked Gloria Estefan, really. I am not a fan or anything, but she's pretty, so that's why it happened, I suppose. In later years I might have picked Mariah Carey or Bjørk or something.' (Richard)
Eureka Event of Excellence. Momentously pretentious event involving a lot of fireworks, 400 singers, some guest artists and >Vangelis, taking place on 18 June 1991. All of it, with the exception of some keyboard fills and, possibly, the choire, was playbacked. Still, it looked really impressive. A visit to this occasion by the ST NEWS editorial staff and various members of the >Quartermass Xperiment was chronicled in a >real-time article in ST NEWS Volume 6 Issue 2.
European Demos. Two-disk megademo, one of the two to be released at the >STNICCC in 1990, together with "Syntax Terror". Made by the >Overlanders, who actually pronounced it as "European Demos". Well, at least they got the plural right, but that was probably because they had Dogue de Mauve, English expert, among their ranks.
Evelien. Stefan's first real girlfriend, back in the very early years of ST NEWS. We're talking early 1988 here, around the time when >TEX visited >ST Club Eindhoven and the first >Real-time article was written.
Excel Software. English company of Stockport, Cheshire, set up by >Niall McKiernon. It primarily distributed Public Domain software in the UK. After Richard had written an article about viruses that got published in the December 1988 issue of >"Page 6", Niall contacted him for a distribution deal on what was then known as the "Virus Destruction Utility". Little more than half a year later, he got Richard a deal with >CRL. In this day and age - with Bill Gates and all - it is unimaginable to have a company with a name like that and not get your arse sued off.
Exceptions, The (TEX). See the entry on >TEX.
Extravagant English. A group of ST NEWS readers in Chorley, England. They wrote some very interestingly warped letters to Stefan and Richard, and a short period of intense correspondence followed. Ash Chadwick was the one who had the ST and wrote some simple but hilarious demos. He later entertained the editorial staff by writing lengthy accounts of autopsies, which he had to assist with for his work. He has a sister called >Mel Chadwick.
'The Extravagant English were very much like the >Nutty Norwegians, only rather more Extravagant and less Nutty. We'd always hoped for Grotesque Germans, Awesome Australians and Berzerked Belgians, but somehow they never came. Closest we came was an Amazing Austrian (hi Marinos!).' (Richard)
Faber, Gerard. A.k.a. Fabersoft, which is, granted, a bit of a silly name. He co-conspired with the creation of ST NEWS somewhere in the 1986-1987 time-span. He then switched to buy an >Amiga with his friend >Jos Schilders. They claimed to be very happy with their Amigas.
Falcon. The computer that ought perhaps to have saved Atari, but that didn't really. Which is really too bad.
FaST Club. Excellent Atari club in Nottingham, England, lead by Paul Glover. They released a magazine called "ST Applications", and faithfully supported Atari ST and >Falcon formats. Ever since original UK ST NEWS distributor >"Page 6 / >New Atari User" started to devote less attention to 16-bit Atari stuff and less to 8-bit, "Fast Club" became the original ST NEWS distributor. They have also been distributing the ">Ultimate Virus Killer" since early 1997. Not long after that they sortof, well, died.
F.A.S.T.E.R. Commercial disk magazine from >Canada which started around autumn of 1986, within months after ST NEWS, and ended with Volume 2 Issue 4, around the summer of 1987. Right from the start it used a GEM-based user interface with a (medium resolution) picture. This was what eventually caused ST NEWS to start using its own user interface (though not originally quite such a good one) starting with the first 1987 issue, Volume 2 Issue 1.
'It was the magazine we looked up to, and certainly the best of its time by a long shot. A year or so later, "ST World" magazine wrote a review of ST NEWS in which it claimed we had got better than "F.A.S.T.E.R.", which was at the time the biggest compliment we could get.' (Richard)
Fax Wars, the. A friendly war that included a lot of swearing and pictures of Lost People slaughtering Gremlbears (no typo), and vice versa. It all happened one day in the late summer of 1990, through fax, between a number in Sweden and the number of the >Thalion offices in Germany. >Thalion's managing director wasn't very happy the next day, when he noticed how often fax messages had been sent. This eventually accumulated in a special 'slaughter screen' in the >TLB megademo, "Ooh Crikey Wot a Scorcher".
Fender. Make of guitar - a Fender Stratocaster to be more precise - played by the likes of >Yngwie Malmsteen and Jimi Hendrix, and owned by Richard since March 1998. He's even started a Fender Stratocaster fetish/tribute site, Strat Central. At the moment, the Strat's headstock boasts signatures by Joe Stump, John Petrucci, Steve Vai and >Yngwie Malmsteen. Joe Satriani and Ritchie Blackmore will, hopefully, in time, be added.
Flash Cracking Group (FCG). Sortof semi-illegal German crew of which the >Amazing Cracking Conspiracy became a member after them switching to the Atari ST. It only lasted for a few months, after which they joined the >Desaster Area. All this joining and stuff was basically a name thing and never amounted to any serious co-operation. FCG was already pretty 'famous' on the >Commodore 64.
Flying Shark. Game released by Firebird in the late eighties. Reviewing this game, Stefan wrote his first ever 'introductory novel', which was a particularly fine one even though it ended in the death of the protagonist.
Froggies over the Fence. Last of the great megademos, released 29 September 1993 on 3 double-sided disks, originally planned for September 1992. Richard wrote the scroll message of the "reset screen", which was arguably the longest scroller ever written in the history of Atari demo coding with a length of almost 170,000 bytes (this fact has been in fact disputed). Unfortunately, the demo allowed the reader to page up and down through it, and it had become readable as a screen-filling story instead of a simple horizontal scrolling line. The demo was released by a bunch of French crews, lead by the >Overlanders.
Fury. The Man With The Smelliest Feet In The Universe. Known to send worn socks to members of varies other crews, such as >Tim of >TLB and Tyrem of The Respectables. His real name is Fabrice Odero, and he lives in the south of France somewhere.
Gehrmann, Holger. First of the Atari ST sound programmers who were any good. He made several games for his company, reLINE software, titles of which include "Extensor" and "Space Port". "Extensor" was a monochrome "Tron" type of game, not too good but with really great music that was the first to use "twin-tone mode" on the Atari YM 2149 sound chip. "Space Port" was a >Commodore 64 "Fort Apocalypse" clone, though not quite as playable. Holger made his music available for use in a project called >"Synth Sample V", including one exclusive composition.
GenST. The assembler of choice, part of HiSoft's "DevPac ST", for Stefan. Using this, he wrote all the assembler code for ST NEWS and his contributions to the >TLB demos.
'Any programmer worth his salt used GenST.' (Stefan)
Gently, Dirk. Character in >Douglas Adams' books "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" (1987) and "The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul" (1988). Marvelously witty and very, very weird. Inspiring, too.
'Needless to say, both Stefan and me consumed these books avidly. I recently read them again and was once again inspired and awed and its weirdness. Now I come to think of it, I think the Electric Monk might have been the catalyst for all the general nuttyness and crazitude that entered ST NEWS around the end of 1988, which is when we actually got into these books.' (Richard)
GfA Basic. A very powerful and versatile BASIC dialect for the ST, written by Frank Ostrowski and marketed by GfA Systemtechnik, Germany. Used by Stefan and Richard to write most of the ST NEWS code, and by Richard to produce all of his other programs. Using Pascal-like procedures and fast 100% machine code, it was challenged only by "Omikron Basic", which came on the market too late. Especially through use of "GfA Flydials" by Gregor Duchalski, such programs as "Hiscore Terminal Utility", "Backup Destruction Utility" and >"Ultimate Virus Killer" came by their slick GEM interface using windows and custom dialogs.
Glenlivet. After reading "Magic Kingdom for Sale (Sold)" by Terry Brooks - in which the protagonist took only a few bottles of Glenlivet from the real world to the imaginary world - Stefan decided to try this drink. The smooth and mellow 12 year old single malt Scotch whisky went down well and Stefan introduced it to his friend >Niklas Malmqvist in Sweden. Both became big fans of the drink and many, many bottles were consumed during Nik's monthly visits to Stefan during the >CD-I years.
Googlogulpax (also spelled GOOGOGULPEX). Fictional planet from which uncannily naked, incredibly long-limbed creatures descend to >earth to hand >"Multiface" cartridges to unsuspecting ST NEWS editorial staff members. Creatures from this planet occurred twice in the 10 years ST NEWS lasted, and are known to have taken grave insult to the term "ËÍ«Ëìé媨Ôö!" Unfortunately, only those of you watching this text on an Atari ST will get the true value of this string, for it uses Hebrew characters.This string of seemingly pointless characters was 'accidentally' typed in when Stefan was writing and Richard put on >Sodom's "Live Without Sense" rather too loudly. Although meaningless to most sentient beings, in Googlogulpaxian it means "Go and stick a Brussels sprout up your anal muscle". The planet has an economy that largely thrives on the growing of Brussels Sprouts (come on now, you didn't believe there was enough space in Brussels to grow them all, did you?). As a matter of fact, they have at least 41 different words for "sprout", though only one word for "sphincter".
Gray Matter. The company that lured Stefan away from >SPC, and onto the North American continent. Located in Toronto, Ontario, >Canada, it created games for the Sony Playstation, the Sega Saturn, the 3DO M2 and PC. The company was headed by author of the 8-bit version of the immortal game "Boulderdash", Chris Gray. The company was involved in writing a PC/Playstation version of "The Crow: City of Angels", which was supposed to be the most gory and violent game of all times. As a matter of fact, >Gard Abrahamsen was employed for the sole purpose of designing the blood and splatter scenes. Unfortunately for all involved, not long after the release of the game (which was as badly fated as the film), in autumn 1997, the company went bust.
Greco, Gerardo. First Italian distributor of ST NEWS, later followed up by Federico Bicini. Gerardo wrote some interesting stuff, such as a review of the impressive "ADAP Sound Rack" (early in Volume 2) and an >interview with Shiraz Shivji, the man who according to popular legend designed both the >Commodore 64 and Atari ST on his kitchen table.
Greek Goddess. Title, lovingly bestowed on the waitress in a Greek restaurant (real name Agapi) that was visited by Stefan and Richard after the "HCC Dagen" (a computer fair) in the autumn of 1988. They fell instantly, romantically and head-over-heels in love with her for a period that lasted approximately 12 euphoric hours into which they committed to paper a rather over-the-top and quite self-indulgent piece about her that eventually made it into ST NEWS Volume 3 Issue 7, which they also decided they'd >dedicate to her.
'In March 1989, we eventually had dinner at that particular restaurant, "Zorba the Greek", again. We had a printed-out version of the story with us. Although Agapi wasn't there that particular evening, we gave it to a colleague that said he'd hand it on. He probably had a good laugh! Agapi no longer works there now. As a matter of fact, a few years ago the name changed to "Mr. Jack's" and it's now a rather cramped and cheap Italian/Greek restaurant. I go there regularly because it's so cheap. They sell a gorgeous but culinary barbarian "giros pizza". I always add gorgonzola cheese sauce to add more insult to my taste buds.' (Richard)
Guatemala. A small country in Middle America. Stefan went here in 1992, visiting his girlfriend at the time, >Ivette.
Gütersloh. Town about 50 kilometres east of the German Ruhrgebiet, suffering from a chronic lack of nightlife. It was the town where >Thalion Software was located and, thus, the place where Richard lived for 18 months from October 1988 to March 1991.
'The best times I had there were the Christmas markets. They used to sell great baked mushrooms then. Gütersloh had no nightlife whatsoever, which was horrible. We'd go to the cinema regularly, though, but the films were dubbed in German. Good thing was that they didn't have breaks in the middle of the film. We spent our evenings working late, writing, coding, or watching videos. We used to live in the old Thalion office, where there weren't any showers, so we just went to the swimming pool really early in the morning to shower ourselves. We spent our time there wetting old German women's hair which they tried - and failed - very much to keep dry.' (Richard)
Häagen-Dazs. After first tasting this in the USA, Stefan became immediately hooked. Certainly the king of ice creams, and still ruling. Much to Stefan's despair, it was unavailable in Holland for years. He had to get his fixes while on holiday in the States or visiting his sister in the UK. When it was finally introduced to Holland, Stefan frequently used to make 20 minute detours while driving home from work to pick up a tub. Now, living in >Canada, the stuff is available to him in every supermarket and gas station, a true heaven. Be assured that his freezer always contains at least one tub.
Hackbear, Lord (LHB). Honorary title, "Ripper of the Decade", bestowed upon Torbjørn >Ose after having hacked the copy protection off the "Thalion Sound Demo". The decade in question is that of the 80's, and Torbjørn also deserved this title because he'd ripped the music from every single issue of ST NEWS up to that moment, and he'd written a special utility to extract and decompress the ST NEWS articles to find the >hidden ones. The lengths to which he'd go were quite amazing. At the same time this title was bestowed on Torbjørn, Karl-Anders Øygard (a.k.a. Wizzcat of >Delta Force) got titled his apprentice. The ST NEWS editorial staff was greatly pleased when Torbjørn adapted this name as his new computer scene nickname and even, much later, joined Delta Force under this monicker. Later, Torbjørn also wrote a small .CPX module to accompany the >"Ultimate Virus Killer".
Hamsters. Small nocturnal rodents that gather food and nesting materials using their pouch-like cheeks. Very cute and cuddly, they make good pets and their endless curiosity and activity make them a great source of entertainment. A funny thing is that many people see hamster-keeping as childish and immature yet every one of the critics melted when confronted with the small balls of fur and were stricken by their cute and friendly appearance. Richard and Stefan have had quite a few, including >Pippi, >Cronos, Malmpje, >Chi-Chi, >Nephilim, >Natanga and >Mr. Pink (and that is just during the ST NEWS years, i.e. from summer 1986 to 1996). Richard and >Karin later had a black hamster called Sean (a.k.a. Shorn), name after the sheep in Wallace & Grommit's "A Close Shave" film. In November 1999 it died and with it became The Final Of The Hamsters. Karin and Richard had three rats, which were actually even more fun (if you're interested, they're all female and called Jopie, Lillith and Velma).
Hatlemark, Ronny. Erstwhile ST NEWS distributor in >Norway and host to the "Norway Quest" (1989-1990), later 'just' good friend after he decided to sell his Atari and embrace the world of PCs and compatibles and once more (co-)host to a smaller "Norway Quest" in the summer of 1993. He was the centrepoint of the >Nutty Norwegians. It wasn't until the general ST NEWS craziness involving >Douglas Adams, reli-nuts and general mayhemmatic absurdity that he really showed himself from his zany side, bringing into the play his friends >Gard Abrahamsen, >Frøystein Hustadnes and Torbjørn >Ose. During the first "Norway Quest" he started seeing Anne-Grete Masdal, with whom he got a daughter, Jeanette (b. 13 June 1992). Not long after the second Norway Quest (summer 1993), they unfortunately broke up. Ronny now works for the Norwegian company Cinet and lives in Oslo. He is trying to give up smoking.
'I still remember the first thing he sent to me. It was a picture postcard of the place where he lived, Ørsta, at the end of a fjord and draped on a mountain. It had a small circle around a house, with an arrow which said "I live here". He became the official Norwegian ST NEWS distributor but I never really heard anything from him for about a year or so. Until he discovered that we were crazy, that is, and he really joined our frayed edges of insanity.' (Richard)
Hawking, Stephen. Brilliant British scientist suffering from ALS Lou Gehrig's Syndrome, a fate shared by wonder-guitarist >Jason Becker. Hawking has written several excellent and quite exciting books, one of which - "A Brief History of Time" (1988) - was read by the ST NEWS editorial staff.
'A book like that cannot help but change the reader for the rest of his life. Although it's quite difficult, Hawking goes through lengths to try and make it understandable. It really changes some of the basic aspects of life, just to know some of the stuff he knows. He is the Einstein of our time. He wrote another 'popularly' scientific book a couple of years later, but I forgot its name.' (Richard)
Headache Obliteration Device. Loving nickname applied to the >Aiwa walkmen, caused by their sheer ability to obliterate headaches by inserting the earphones and pressing "PLAY". Although never described as such, they are also "Hangover Annihilation Devices".
Headbanging. An act of repeatedly moving back and forth (or circularly around) of one's head, preferably to heavy metal music. At times it's done with towels on heads, which had a rather hilarious effect when performed on a video like, say, the >"ST NEWS Home Vid'".
Helmond. Town in the southern part of the Netherlands, about 15 km. east of Eindhoven, where Richard lived from his birth in 1967 up to his departure from home in the summer of 1988. The route from Richard's house to the train station is particularly bumpy, particularly when experienced by the behind of someone sitting on the back of his bike.
'A pretty OK place, though I'd prefer never to have to live there again. It's turned very criminal - rating second after the really big cities such as Amsterdam - and has changed quite a bit since I left. I don't feel at home there any more. My parents don't even live there anymore, they moved to Heeze in 1998 or thereabouts.' (Richard)
Hidden Articles. Ever since ST NEWS Volume 4 Issue 2, with the exception of Volume 10 Issue 2, one or more articles in ST NEWS have been 'hidden'. This usually entailed that some kind of thing had to be performed by the reader (such as pressing a particular key combination, or typing a particular word or number when in menu mode) in order to gain access to articles reckoned not fit for normal exposure. Usually, these featured raunchy song lyrics or rather "American Psycho" type horrors, or dirty bits lifted off some deranged Usenet News group, or segments from fake >real-time articles. Most of the time, though, they feature articles that are funny in a harmless way, but hidden because they were taken from another source. The first couple of ST NEWS issues with hidden articles had separately written segments of the program to cope with them, but there have been standard routines in them since about 1992. They can handle all 'hidden article event types' needed. >Lord HackBear is known to have ripped hidden articles using a custom ST NEWS decrunching tool. One wonders why he did it.
'I always thought that too many disk magazines were made up for too far an extent - or even almost solely - of 'humour' articles lifted off some Internet site or BBS. When we'd come across one of these that was simply irresistibly funny, we'd use them as hidden articles. That way we could at least have the outward impression that we were doing all of ST NEWS just about ourselves. We never used more than 5% of all stuff as hidden articles, I think.' (Richard)
Hippel, Jochen. (b. 14 October 1972) A.k.a. Mad Max of >TEX. One of the most brilliant Atari music programmers, especially because of his amazing sound routine. He started converting >Rob Hubbard tunes from the >Commodore 64 for the first few TEX demos, which eventually culminated in the astounding >"B.I.G. Demo", released in early 1988. For quite a few issues, starting with ST NEWS Volume 2 Issue 5, he's supplied the music. With the release of Volume 5 Issue 2, the "Mega Apocalypse" soundtrack was not quite what was expected, after which music by other sound programmers was used. He has hardly been heard of since. He popped up and proved not to have changed a bit (except for his hair now having gone) at the >STNICCC 2000. Still a really cool guy, and modest too.
The below table lists the music in ST NEWS. Click on music link to download the original C64 SIDplay file; files succeeded by an asterisk (*) were never available on the Commodore 64 and have been supplied in ST Sound format. To actually get to hear the music, you need to have installed SIDplay and the ST Sound plug-in.
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Issue: |
Title: |
Programmed by: |
Origin: |
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2.1 |
? |
Gershon Kingsley of Hot Butter |
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2.5 |
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2.6 |
Mad Max |
Rob Hubbard |
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2.7 |
Mad Max |
Rob Hubbard |
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2.8 |
Mad Max |
Rob Hubbard |
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3.1 |
Mad Max |
Rob Hubbard |
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3.2 |
Mad Max |
Rob Hubbard |
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3.3 |
Mad Max |
Rob Hubbard |
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3.4 |
Mad Max |
David Whittaker |
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3.5 |
Mad Max |
Rob Hubbard |
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3.6 |
Mad Max |
Rob Hubbard |
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3.7 |
Mad Max |
Rob Hubbard |
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3.C |
Mad Max |
Rob Hubbard |
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4.1 |
Mad Max |
Rob Hubbard |
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4.2 |
Mad Max |
Rob Hubbard / >Jarre |
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4.3 |
Mad Max |
Martin Galway |
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4.4 |
Mad Max |
Chris Hülsbeck |
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Mad Max |
Rob Hubbard |
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Mad Max |
Martin Galway |
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David Whittaker |
David Whittaker |
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5.1 |
Mad Max |
Jeroen Tel |
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F.C |
Mad Max |
Rob Hubbard |
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5.2 |
Mad Max |
Rob Hubbard |
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6.1 |
The Mind |
The Mind |
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6.2 |
The Mind |
The Mind |
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7.1 |
The Mind |
The Mind |
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7.2 |
Big Alec |
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7.3 |
Big Alec |
Big Alec / Mike Oldfield |
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8.1 |
Big Alec |
Big Alec |
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8.2 |
Big Alec |
Big Alec |
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9.1 |
Big Alec |
Big Alec |
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9.2 |
Big Alec |
Matt Gray |
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9.3 |
Big Alec |
Big Alec |
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10.1 |
Big Alec |
Big Alec |
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10.2 |
Big Alec |
Big Alec |
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11.1 |
Big Alec |
Big Alec |
x.C = Compendium; F.C = Final Compendium
Hold button. Thing on the >Aiwa walkmen owned by both members of the ST NEWS editorial staff. When in the "on" position, it makes sure no key is accidentally depressed. When in the "on" position, it also makes sure any intended action is not actually executed (even though the key is actually depressed), such as "record" when in one room together with the X-Cops, doing an >interview.
'I was pretty pissed off at my own stupidity.' (Richard)
Holst, Kai. (b. 20 Aug. 1974) One of the two members (with Leif Einar Claus, lover of 12-year-old-girls and dweller of the arctic circle) of the New >Nutty Norwegians. He got introduced to ST NEWS rather late, so he had missed all the old goings-on. Like Richard, he was also the author of a virus killer program, "Antidote" ('practise safe hex, use "Antidote"!'). Richard and >Miranda visited him (as well as >Ronny Hatlemark) in the summer of 1993. His mother, like that of Ronny, is a great and copious cook. Kai is an unsurpassed knower of old ST NEWS trivia.
Home Vid'. Quite a few of these have been made throughout the history of ST NEWS. The first, of course, was the May 1989 >"ST NEWS Home Vid'". It features a lot of drunken silliness, the ST NEWS editorial staff, and innocent fox terrier named Chester. Later followed the December 1990 "ST NEWS International Christmas Coding Convention Vid'" (of which over 40 copies were made and sent out, and which in December 2000 was transferred onto 3 CDs in MPEG format), the summer 1991 (?) "QX Home Vid' - Looking For Inspiration" and the Yuletide 1992/1993 "The Vid' We Found No Name For". They are sometimes referred to as CVTs, or Crazy Video Tapes.
'The term "home vid'", with the trendy apostrophe at the end, was inspired by the "Cliff 'Em All" >Metallica home vid'. The stuff we did was pretty much like it - the quality ain't that happenin', but it's the atmosphere that counts.' (Richard)
Honey. Bees' shit. Despite the fact that it comes from a arthropod's arsehole, it tastes remarkably sweet. >Ants have an obsession with it.
Hospital for the Very Very Splattered. A kind of sanatorium for suicidals located on >Ambulor Eight. Nurses - who are known to bear uncanny resemblance to >Gloria Estefan in at least one or two recorded cases - walk around with "Ambulor Eight Hospital For The Very Very Splattered" printed on the back of their uniforms in blood-red, dripping writing most commonly found in B-horror flicks.
House, My. A small adventure game written in >"GfA Basic" used to illustrate Stefan's first programming article for ST NEWS, "How to Write Your Own Adventures" (in ST NEWS Volume 1 Issue 6, November 1986). Based on one of his first adventures written way back for the >Commodore VIC 20 after he got an 8K RAM expansion for it.
Hubbard, Rob. Amazingly talented music programmer and, even more so, composer. Made a name on the >Commodore 64 by writing a large amount of excellent musical pieces for games, such as "Monty on the Run", "Knuckle Buster" and "Master of Magic". He first appeared on the Atari platform in 1987 through the music of a Microdeal game called "Goldrunner" (which was actually a three-voice version of a two-voice tune in the Commodore 64 game "Human Race"). He later did the music for "Jupiter Probe" (Microdeal), "Warhawk" (Firebird) and "Thrust" (Firebird). His last musical piece on the Atari was for Elite's "Thundercats". Quite a few of his compositions made it into ST NEWS through the capable hands of >Jochen Hippel. In the late eighties he went to work for >Electronic Arts, where he is a producer in the audio field. Some of his compositions have been enhanced - sometimes with aid of himself - to be made into full-fledged synthesizer tracks on various products such as the most excellent "Back in Time" CDs.
Hustadnes, Frøystein. Also known as Frøykid and the F-word. Legendary originator of the >Crazy Letters craze. He started writing them to the ST NEWS crew late 1988, stirred by the ever crazier writings (especially those involving >sandals) in ST NEWS. He is the author of the immortal article, "Why the >Earth is Flat". Believed to be very young and tiny, he turned out to be quite the opposite in real life. Unfortunately, the fact that the ST NEWS crew had bought him a red-blue-and-yellow plastic toy truck for him during their "Norway Quest" may have estranged him permanently. He is believed to be concentrating on climbing mountains and attempting to rationalize the principles of >car dating. He used to live in the town of Hustadnes, and indeed he might still.
International Coding Conference. Coding conference organised by the German >Delta Force of Stuttgart. They each took place around their place of residence. The first one was organised in the summer of 1990, with the second one taking place from 1 August to 4 August 1991 (covered in a huge >real-time article in ST NEWS Volume 6 Issue 2). A third one, the so-called Virtual International Coding Conference, was an event taking place on the Internet IRC network on 7 November 1995.
International Coding Convention, ST NEWS. See ">ST NEWS International Christmas Coding Convention".
Interviews. Throughout the history of ST NEWS, the editorial staff as well as the various co-conspirators have managed to interview quite a few people of various ilk. A virtually complete list follows. Computer people: Chris "Maggie" Holland, Sietse "DBA Magazine" Postma, David "ST Enthusiasts Newsletter" Mooney, >Jeff "Yak the Hairy" Minter (twice), >Rob Hubbard, Julian Reschke, David Whittaker, Alex "Goldrunner II" Herbert, John "Goldrunner II" Dower, Shiraz Shivji, Jeroen "Maniacs of Noise" Tel, >Steve "Goldrunner" Bak, Stuart "RDD" Coates, Pete Lyon, Damien M. Jones, Ben Daglish, John "Nebulus" Phillips, Peter "Arkanoid" Johnson, Ofir "GEMBench" Gal, Stefan Posthuma, Andy and Dave (of Volume 11, i.e. "Starball"), Tim "Spitting Image" Coupe, the Bullfrog Team (of "Populous" fame), Jez "Starglider" San, >the Lost Boys (and later >Tim "Manikin" Moss separately), Tony "Cybernoid" Cooper, Ian "Carrier Command" Oliver, Dan "NeoDesk" Wilga and Richard "Felice" Spowart. Music people: Whistler Courbois Whistler, Bernd Steidl, Paradise Lost, Entombed, Napalm Death, Yngwie >Malmsteen, X-Cops, Gwar, >Venom, My Dying Bride, Anathema, >Dream Theater, Consolation, Nembrionic Hammerdeath, Kevin Ferguson, Obituary, At The Gates, Altar, Septic Flesh, Nightfall, Orphaned Land, Fates Warning and Jens Johansson. Various other people: >Terry "Discworld" Pratchett and Anne "Dragonriders of Pern" McCaffrey. And, of course, Steven Spielberg (NOT!). There has even been a >hidden article in which Richard interviewed himself.
'I still have a wishing list of people I'd like to interview, though. In the computer biz' there are Anthony Crowther and Martin Galway; in the music biz' there are Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Rush, >Queensrÿche, Deep Purple, Rainbow and >Metallica. I'd just about give my right arm for those. Film stars? No, they don't really do much for me. Quentin Tarantino or James Cameron sound like interesting people, though. Or maybe Kate Winslet?' (Richard)
IRC. (Acronym for International Reply Coupon) Small green pieces of paper with text in various languages on them. When sent with a letter, they allow the addressee to bring the IRC to the post office in exchange for a stamp. This way, the addressee does not have to spend money on postage when the sender expects him or her to write back. This may seem like a cheapskate thing to do, but especially when a lot of letters require answering, this is a real blessing.
'Nothing beats a lot of English people who simply sent English stamps and expected me to put them on my envelopes that I sent from the Netherlands. I still wonder whether that was subconscious arrogance or just plain boneheadedness.' (Richard)
Ivette. A >Guatemaltekan girl Stefan met while attending a computer conference in San Jose, California. Love at first sight does exist and a relationship ensued. Later, Stefan visited her in Guatemala and he wrote a story about it in ST NEWS. Long distance and culture shock ended the relationship about a year later.
Janssen, Carel. Writer of the long-running "Forth Course", a series of tutorials which started somewhere in ST NEWS Volume 2 and continued up to the final pre->undead issue, i.e. Volume 5 Issue 1. Carel missed submitting his writings for only one or two issues, and that was because he had been the unfortunate victim of a heart attack. Although some people might claim the subject matter wasn't all that interesting, the articles were always superbly written and interesting even for those not of a Forth-y persuasion.
Jarre, Jean Michel. (b. 24 Aug. 1948) French keyboard virtuoso who released a fine range of synthesiser albums, starting with "Oxygene" (1976). ST NEWS Volume 4 Issue 2, of April 1989, was >dedicated to him. He has released quite a few studio albums during the life of ST NEWS, and quite a few live albums as well. He has also released at least 4 live videos. Particularly the "Revolutions" and "Concerts in China" CDs seemed to be really important parts in the ST NEWS finishing processes.
JBL. The make of Stefan's XPL160 speakers. Massive and powerful, and sounding exquisite. Much to the chagrin of the Mad Neighbour, a screaming woman that lived in the apartment below Stefan in >Oss. When he left for >Canada, Stefan sold his >Kenwood stereo, but refused to part with his beloved JBLs. They are now part of a home-theatre set-up in Stefan's apartment in Toronto, >Canada.
Johansson, Lars. (b. 5 August 1975) A.k.a. Dark Shadow, member of the Swedish 'union', Flexichron (which at one time consisted of up to 25 people, members of the Invizibles, Frontline, Hack Pack, Trimate/Bomb Squad, Offbase, Imagina and some other crews). After Ewe Häkansson gave up being the official Swedish distributor of ST NEWS, Lars Johansson became he. Apart from doing the distribution, he has also contributed to the actual ST NEWS contents. He also contributed a >real-time article for a Swedish convention that was so appalling it was refused (the only ever article refused to be put in ST NEWS; it was basically a giant load of semi-unknown people - >Amiga crew people, so it later turned out - saying "fuck" and "shit" a lot and saying how other people sucked). In the final couple of issues, Lars tortured many people by his weird articles and imagery, some of which had to be made into >hidden articles. Lars claims it was a phase in his life. From 1990-1993 Lars was also a free-lance writer for Sweden's biggest paper-based computer magazine, "Svenska Hemdator Nytt". Lars is currently working as a database administrator at the marketing department of an energy company supplying energy to business and household customers across Europe. He has finished writing a full-length movie script that is, as yet, still unsold. From 1990-1993 Lars was also a free-lance writer for Sweden's biggest paper-based computer magazine, "Svenska Hemdator Nytt". In 1997 he ran off to North America and met a nice Canadian girl with whom he's currently living in Stockholm, Sweden with. Lars is working as a customer database analyst for a large European corporation.
Joyce, Bryan H. Author who wrote the "Tavern at the Edge of the Universe" stories for ST NEWS, which were pretty brilliant. Latest thing he wrote that was used in ST NEWS was a very personal autobiography.
Karin. (b. 13 Jul. 1973) Richard's second and at the time considered Final Serious Girlfriend, with whom he got married 21 May 1999 after having lived together since 10 Jan. 1998. The end of July 2001 saw them splitting up.
'She was the focal point of my life, it's so frustrating and strange when someone who is such an important part of you just no longer wants to be part of it. It hurt more than anything I can imagine.' (Richard)
Karsmakers, Richard. (b. 3 Nov. 1967) Founder of ST NEWS and main writer. Lived in >Helmond until 1988 when, after he'd finished secondary school (MAVO, HAVO, Atheneum), he went to >Utrecht >University to study Biology. That didn't particularly work out, so in October 1989 he started working for >Thalion Software in Germany. There he did translations, novella writing and game design (he did the level design for >"Leavin' Teramis", the map design and editing for "Amberstar", and the more complete design for >"A Prehistoric Tale"). In April 1991 he left Thalion and went to work for >ACN. That lasted for two months, so he was on the dole for a month or two before he started his English studies, again at >Utrecht >University. At the same time he went to live together with >Miranda, whom he'd been going steady with since July 1989. They broke up in September 1994, and his ex-wife >Karin entered his life. He finishing his English studies in December 1996, after which he did a one year course to get a teaching degree. Actually having spent about six months in front of secondary school children, he picked up an office automation teacher job in September 1997 which he seemed quite to like. Later on he became even more involved in Microsoft products (Visual Basic 6 and SQL Server 2000 mostly) when he went to work for a variety of other employers that are beyond the scope of this reference guide to chronicle (though his personal web site will reveal all). In 2002, not too long after "the whole Karin" thing (a thing which surprised him no end) he discovered feelings for a girl he'd already known for 10 years...and in October 2002 they moved in together, 5 September 2003 they married, and they intend to live long and happy hereafter. In fact, on 24 April 2004 the family was extended by baby daughter, Anne.
He got his first computer in the summer of 1984, a >Commodore 64 (although he had doubted for a while whether he should perhaps buy a Sinclair QL). Around Easter 1986 he switched it for an Atari ST (512 Kb RAM, TOS on disk, >SF 354 single-sided disk drive, monochrome monitor only, and only "ST Logo", ">ST Basic", "DB Master One" and "1st Word" for software). In 1990 he sold it to upgrade to a MEGA ST2 that he expanded to 4 Mb, which in turn he sold later after he'd bought a >Falcon 030 (4 Mb memory, 340 Mb hard disk) in October 1993. Another two years later the Falcon was sold so it wouldn't clutter of a desk on which had appeared a PC. His Atari activities have since been limited to use of "GEMulator" to update his >"Ultimate Virus Killer". Together with Robert Goodwin, Richard also used to maintain the Atari ST Emulation FAQ. The main menu to all of his web projects is www.42nd.net.
Kennerley, Bryan. (A.k.a. "The Android") (b. 15 May 1971) Crazy Welsh bloke who came pretty close to being an >Extravagent English person all on his own, without help of the actual Extravagent English at all. Always eager to talk about a variety of topics - including guitars, >Malmsteen, sex, kinkiness, perversion, Satriani, TV, England and Steve Vai - he got into a pretty interesting pen pal relationship with Richard, which actually culminated into a brief visit of Bryan to >Utrecht in the summer of 1994 somewhere (approximately). These days he's doing Web Page design for a site for the promotion of North Wales.
'You wouldn't believe some of the stuff this guy wrote. But that caused me to go really open with him, too. I don't think I've ever been this open with any ST NEWS readers.' (Richard)
Kenwood. The make of Stefan's mighty stereo system. It produced many, many hours of music to sustain Stefan during his long nights of demo coding and also provided music during the many ST NEWS finishing sessions at Stefan's place. Stefan once extolled it in "Lost in the Ken Wood", a short piece published in ST NEWS a long time ago (beginning of 1988, approximately). In >Canada, the system has been replaced by a high-end Sony home-theatre set-up.
Klaxos Nine. Reputedly, the most boring planet in the universe. People consider walking their snails rather too exciting an event, and would much rather spend their few waking hours watching the grass grow.
LateST NEWS Quest, The. Enormous 'quest' undertaken by the ST NEWS editorial staff during the summer of 1989, when Stefan and Richard travelled to England to meet as many software celebrities and visit as many software companies as possible. It was faithfully chronicled in Volume 4 Issue 4, which was dedicated to it entirely. A lot of people were had >interviews with, and companies such as U.S. Gold, Hewson, Vectordean, Gremlin Graphics, Vector Graphics, Barrington Harvey (who did PR for Martech, among others), Virgin Mastertronic, Ocean, >Electronic Arts, Microprose and Argonaut were visited.
Lavaro. A smooth brand of Dutch Brandy, and the penultimate before >Plantiac was eventually discovered. Lavaro is similarly nice, though not quite.
Leavin' Teramis. Game released by >Thalion. It was the first game that Richard did some design for; he designed the playfields for levels 2 and up. A picture of >Jeff Minter can be found on a higher level, where he shoots off llamas that try to kill you. And there's a really frantic level ending around a Napalm Death logo, too. These graphics were done by Mickey Grohe, one of the lesser famous Thalion contributors.
Lemmen, Frank. (b. 27 Oct. 1967) One of the original members of >Amazing Cracking Conspiracy on the >Commodore 64, switched to the Atari ST with Richard around Easter of 1986. He wrote a series of articles called "MIDI Corner", and will probably be remembered best for his fine tutorial, "How to Clean your Mouse". He currently works at a computer wholesales organisation and lives in Eindhoven with his wife, Yvonne, whom he married in October 1997. He actually threw his old Atari ST hardware in the bin early 2000, after it had languished on a bottom shelf for quite some time already. These days he's into motor cycles and electro racing.
Level 16. German coding crew of which member Andreas Franz (coding name Ilja) invented no-border screens on the ST, a technique later infinitely refined (and bled to >death :-) by the Luxemburg crew Unlimited Matricks (ULM).
'Andreas was a weird but totally ingenious person. He was quicker than anyone else down the waterslide, could dive in the water whilst keeping his hair dry and wrote the entire music and graphics movement code for his "Union Demo" full-screen in the NOPs between the border-opening commands.' (Richard)
Links. Quick ways to crawl, much like a spider, across the World Wide Web. Quite a few of them are hidden in this reference guide. They used to be in a separate list as well, but they were all put back solely in this article in June 2001, possibly just to annoy you...and to make it more difficult to maintain. Hm.
Loucynda. The first of >Cronos Warchild's girlfriends, left behind on >Sucatraps when he started to take the mercenary business seriously on other planets. He supplied her with a sturdy chastity belt before he left, though, and she has appeared in several stories, begging to be released from that burden. Alas, Cronos appeared to have lost the key. Loucynda is rumoured to have run off with a blacksmith.
Low Price Software. Initiative of >ST Club Eindhoven's boss, >Hubert van Mil. It was erected to give members of the computer club a chance to make a bit of money with the software they'd written. Stefan released >"The Artist+" through this, whereas Richard once produced a multi-disk, er, slide show for it (of questionable content). Other programs released on the 'Low Price Software' label were "Picworks" and various other programs produced by >STRIKE-a-LIGHT.
L.S.D. (Little Sound Demo). One of a legendary trilogy of sound demos by >TEX featuring Atari conversions of musical compositions by >Rob Hubbard. It was after these demos that TEX got the idea to do a really big, all-encompassing music demo, which eventually became the >"B.I.G. Demo".
Lucky Lady. (b. 8 Jan. 1973, d. 3 Jun. 1995) Real name Katja Kladnik. Slovenian virus coder who found it necessary to challenge Richard into a kind of arms race where the killing of new viruses was concerned. She died because of a suicide in June of 1995.
'Despite her warped tendencies to create viruses, she was a fascinating person. Especially after she'd switched to the PC, our correspondence became more informal and personal. It left me smashed when she died. The >"Ultimate Virus Killer Book" and ST NEWS Volume 10 Issue 2 were >dedicated to her.' (Richard)
Mad Max. See the entry on >Jochen Hippel.
Maggie. Major competing disk magazine, founded in 1990 by Michael "Sammy Jo" Schüssler of >TLB, later taken over and vastly improved (interface-wise) when he joined >Delta Force. After a while, however, control of the magazine, which had been inactive for a prolonged time then, somehow went to the capable hands of Chris "I like to call people when they're watching films" Holland (b. 1 Nov. 1964), a.k.a. CIH (the "I" stands for "Ian", little trivial fact). The thing that used to be substandard before - i.e. the level of English - now rose to immaculate heights, also because of other authors such as Michael Noyce. Definitely the best disk magazine around now. Their user interface has in the mean time been overhauled by Leon O'Reilly of Reservoir Gods. The sortof official last issue was released at the >STNICCC 2000, in December 2000. Do mind the 'sortof' bit.
Magnat. The make of the speakers that Stefan bought together with his >Kenwood stereo. He later sold them to Richard after buying the amazing >JBL set. Richard stills owns these, as part of a 5.1 system for which they were not originally designed.
Malmqvist, Niklas. A.k.a. Tanis. The graphics artist of the legendary Carebears (>TCB). A highly talented artist, who spent many hours rendering stunning graphics by hand, pixel by pixel. After he met Stefan at the >ST NEWS International Christmas Coding Convention, they started writing letters to each other and became good friends. Later, Niklas became involved in creating graphics for Stefan's games on the Philips >CD-I machine. He married his girlfriend Lotta on 23 June 1995 and lives in Stockholm, Sweden.
Malmsteen, Yngwie J. (b. 30 June 1963 as Lars Lannerback) He Who Plays The Guitars Fastest And Most Brilliantly In The Known Universe (And Beyond), commonly acronymised as HWPTGFAMBITKU(AB). Richard's favourite guitar player for a long time, and prime reason why he quit having guitar lessons (after all, Malmsteen's level could never be attained with the time and effort he was prepared to invest). Malmsteen conjured up a guitar style out of thin air (neoclassical rock), thus claims ex-keyboardist Jens Johansson, and a lot of people have mimicked him since (or tried to). Although no longer his absolute favourite guitar player, Richard was thoroughly chuffed when he could do an >interview with him. He's really cool to his fans, and really can play the guitar most brilliantly. Most recommended album: "Rising Force" (1984). Two of his later albums, "The Seventh Sign" (1994) and "Magnum Opus" (1995) are really good, too. And the fan club - "Malmsteen Militia" - is really cool as well.
'Yngwie Malmsteen's interview was the first really important interview I'd ever done, and I still rank it among the top 3 with those of >Dream Theater and >Venom. It was, truly, like a dream come true.' (Richard)
Maryse. Girl.
'I don't really know why I chose this girl to be in here but, hey, she is. She was the daughter of the teacher of Latin at my secondary school, and she was really a lovely person. I fell in love with her, needless to say, and in a distant past I even >dedicated an issue of ST NEWS to her. That must have been early 1987, prior to >Willeke. I had crushes all the time back then. Another one that springs to mind is the disastrous Nicole, whom you'll not find in this encyclopedia, and the delectable Yony. And even when I went to >University I didn't cease to have crushes. Prior to flings with one Trea and one Patricia, I had crushes on girls called Anneke and Florien within a matter of days. If you're interested, well, now you know. I have recovered my sanity since.' (Richard)
McKiernon, Niall. (b. 11 Dec. 1968) Dear friend of Richard and proprietor of >Excel Software (up to 1991) and >Douglas Communications (from 1991). Started distributing the >"Ultimate Virus Killer" at the beginning of 1989, and eventually got Richard a deal with >CRL. He is, virtually single-handedly, responsible for getting Richard through the first three years of his >University English caree