
               :                                          :
               :                 +
     ___       :                                          :
  __/__/_________________ 9 _______                       :
  \_  ___(_  _____(__)__/  (_ ____///
  /   \  /  __)__ /  \     _ \ \__                        :
 /  \  \/  /    //    \   / \/   / 
(____\ (____   /(______) (___   /  ___                    .
      \ _/ \__/_____________\__/__/  /_________________   __  ____   _____
       \///(_  _____(_  _   (__)\_  ___/__ _  _____ _  \ (__)(_ _ \ (_   /
           /  __)__ /   /   /  \/   / \_/  |  \  /  /  / /  \/  |  \/   /___
          /  /    //   /   /   /   /   /   |   \/      \/   /   _  /   /   /
         (____   /(_______(___(____   (________(___/    \__(____| (____   /
             \__/                  \__/           /      \_     |_____\__/
               :                                 (________/
               :
           +fOrWoRd14 K    
               :


$ff5
 At  the start of the week Amida suggested that seen as how I was coming
down to London to visit him and to check out the World Of Amiga show, we
should  finish  The Word 14 and bring it with us to show to anyone there
who  was  interested.  Sounded like a good idea, only one problem.  That
left  me with 7 days to get this issue done and there was no way that we
could  do  enough  mail  sends  in  that  time so updates, bug fixes and
support could be carried out.
 Luckily  we  have  a  good  (e)mailing  list already set up for Carnage
combined  with  some  aliases for Dick and other Word supporters.  So we
let everyone know of our plans and got to work on this issue.
 Whatever  you  see  before  you  was based upon the skeleton of Word 13
which  was  on  my  hard  drive.   Everything  else, apart from diskback
service  contributions,  arrived  on  my  hard  drive  via  email.  That
includes, source code, executables, article support, pictures, animation
and  feedback.   So  before  I  go on any further, I would like to thank
those  few  who  overloaded  my  email account with their support.  This
issues for you!

 So  anyway..  Carnage are back with another issue of The Word.  To some
it's  a  couple of credits on your fav BBS, to others it's a relief from
endless disk copying and letter writing.  It's time to sit back and read
your  favourite  disk  magazine  at 50Hz/sec..  If however you wanted to
thank  Carnage  for  keeping The Word alive, there's these things called
charts..

 Subliminal  message  over with, let's talk about the scene.  Yes I know
The  Word  is  not  supposed  to be a scene mag but we spend most of our
spare time living on this "scene" so we want to give something back.
 It's  true  that  with the confusion over the Amiga's future these last
few  years, the Amiga scene has suffered.  We've lost a hell of a lot of
our best guys to the PC scene or to girls (ye gods no!) and the UK scene
seems to of suffered most of all.
 Even  the  groups that attacked Carnage a while back are dead.  So much
for living for ever and killing Carnage!  Here we are still with a pulse
and  groups  like Eltech are history!  Ok so there are a couple of their
members  still  active  but  they  joined  foreign  groups.  So much for
supporting the UK group scene.
 But  never  mind,  elitism is a killer.  It's a bad case of indegestion
but  it's  easy  to get over.  There are so many talented guys out there
just  floating  around  going "PC's suck..  I remember the days when the
Amiga  ruled"  and  "I'm  gonna  start  my  own  group.   Just me and my
goldfish!".   If  they  put  their  heads  together  and worked on a few
projects, there would be a sudden influx of software releases causing PD
companies  to  take  a  deeper  interest  causing people to purchase the
software  and people to buy the machines (if Gateway 2000 makes em).  So
instead  of sitting back and waiting for some group to release something
interesting or for the Amiga to come back to life on it's own, how about
helping out?
 Carnage are heavily UK based I'll admit but we have contacts world wide
and our interests are on a global scale not just local but we can't help
noticing  that  the  UK  scene  is  suffering at present.  While some UK
sceners  are  concentrating  on the foreign scenes we are trying to help
keep  the UK scene going with the help of our UK contacts.  Carnage have
loads of productions in a Work-In-Progress state all the time, sometimes
we  are  waiting  for  a  coder to finish his exams so he can complete a
project  or  a ray-tracer to dump his girlfriend so we can get some cool
renders  in  a  production.  We soon realised that other groups have the
same  problem  so  we  decided  to  put  our  heads  together  and to do
joint-group  productions  so  we have access to a wider range of skilled
sceners.   This  way  we  hope to better promote friendship and releases
within  the  UK  scene that will filter out to the rest of the scene and
will  hopefully  move  the  UK up a few notches in the world charts.  My
thanks  go  out to Spin for re-joining the scene, Karrot and Simon C for
joining  and  to  the  groups  Void, Strobe and Syndicate for showing an
interest in keeping the scene alive.

 My hopes for The Word

 Within Carnage we have a pretty good level of communication.  No member
says  they never know what's happening in the group at present.  We have
an  internal magazine, an e-mailing list and a phonebook (as well as the
traditional  mail  sends).   However we wish there was a similar form of
communication  between  Carnage members and other group members and even
the  average  amiga  owner.   We  are  hoping  to  make  The  Word  that
communication channel.
 I keep saying that "The Word is your magazine" because if you take away
the engine code and all the fancy graphics and music, you have a load of
text  files  from  you,  the readers and this is what makes you load the
issue each time.

 This is how I wish to see the Word over a period of constant updates:

 A  dedicated  scene  section which contains any scene related articles,
group  news  files  and  scene software reviews.  As each section of the
main  menu  is  sectioned  off with a header, we hope to contain with in
this  part  of  the  mag  everything  which  the  scene  magazines  base
themselves on.

 More  support  for the advert section to promote trading within the UK.
Most  people own a modem these days so the mail trading scene isn't what
it  was but I'm happy to display your adverts for mail or modem trading,
BBS adverts, WWW sites, email addresses or IRC channels.  Beginners take
note!  If you want to get into trading, put your advert into The Word!

 Clipart.   I  have  the pseudocode for this that me and Dick worked out
but  it didn't seem so easy to explain it to Amida over the phone!  Next
issue?

 Print option.  If there's a really good article I like and I might want
to  print it out, then uncrunching it and then dumping it to the printer
requires  two  programs.   A  print  option from the menu would be neat!
Come on Amida...

 Photo  Booth.  I have loads of submitted pictures for this.  If there's
time I might try to put one in this issue.  I won't bother Amida with it
as I have the neccessary equip right here to do it..

 More  articles  from  Joe  Public about his point of view on the Amiga.
Even  some  articles  from  PD  company  staff or Amiga magazine people!
Maybe  some  IRC  logs  about  Amiga  topic  discussions?  Let's get the
average persons view into the mag!

 My  main  hopes  for  The Word is that after you've watched the loading
animation  and  picture  and you've tried ripping the mod, you'll find a
magazine  that  will  inform you about the magazine in general, give you
information  on  the Amiga scene at present, present you with reviews on
new  hardware and software, contain amusing topic discussions and jokes,
tell  you  about general interests and present you with a way of getting
in touch with people with similar interests to those of your own.  Word!

 

end
