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Classic old warez - Premiere Issue

eZine lover (@eZine)

Published in

classic old warez

· 28 Feb 2023

Editorial
by ns

Where to start this? Oh yes! Thank you for picking up our first issue of Classic Old Warez e-zine. I'd like to introduce myself to you. My name is John, but I go by ns on IRC. I'm a op in #oldwarez, #emu and of course #cow. I like to play games, listen to music and critisize things in a honest manner. I was also a freelance writer for a few other non-popular web based e-zines.

I want to say that it is a challenge to organize and maintain a e-zine such as this. I tried making this e-zine happen about 2 years ago. Back then, my crew consisted of me, DrConway, BluLine and thrashx. That quickly fell apart because everyone was getting ready to go back to school, including myself. So I decided to wait.

People in #oldwarez kept mentioning that the channel should have an e-zine like RCN. I then remembered that I wanted to form this one a while back. Well, now two years later, it finally gets produced by a slightly different crew. The only with me still is DrConway. Greets to him and thanks for wanting to help me again.

Now that we are off our asses and on our feet, I have sparked a few people to write some interesting articles for us and even convinced BitS to host the web site where CoW will be officially distributed. Greets to him. You can drop by http://cow.oldwarez.com/ to see what the happenings is with CoW.

You can also drop by #CoW on EFnet to help out or see what's up or just tell us what's on your mind.

On a side note, we are looking for DOS programmers, preferably with knowledge of Pascal, C/C++ or Assembler. Also, we are looking for both ASCII and VGA artists. If you feel that you can help, please write to cow@oldwarez.com and one of out staff will be more than happy to get back to you.

Vice-Presidential Welcome Message

by DrConway

Hello, and welcome to Classic Old Warez! In this electronic magazine, which you may either have downloaded as a program or viewed on the World Wide Web, we have many articles ranging from a Windows 2000 parody, to reviews of several old games.

I hope that this e-mag will continue to grow and prosper as we become an e-mag with a definite "old warez" slant. Never failing to keep up with the news of today, while always having room for the warez of yesterday that continue to entertain us.

As the proofreader for this electronic magazine, I've seen the articles up close and know every word of them. I hope you will enjoy reading the articles as much as I did (even before I corrected all the spelling and grammar mistakes ;-) ).

Why Old warez??

by Interman

Well, why the heck not? Most pirates choose the newest 75 disk games because of the graphics, sound etc etc. I think that old gamez like Commander Keen and so many others have a soul, and if you see on the games that are released now, then you see games that get like 57% in trg.. But almost all of the old gamez are classic's and has been a big success for some years ago. So when you may be downloading the latest game with support for Voodoo 7, and requires a 400 Mhz processor then i could have downloaded 20 games and even have more fun in playing them, and when you have downloaded that game and uncompress it and try to start it up then it don't work! So now you have to download a 40 disk fix. Now i could have downloaded even more classic's. So you got the fix and have installed it. You finally get the welcome screen. You choose new game etc, and see that both music, sound and movies are ripped making the game not so cool as you thought it would be. You probably get the picture.. I also see that there may be fun in playing new games too but if you use a dial-up such as me then downloading a new game would take quite a long time. So let's say you try out old gamez for a little while and go to irc and try to get some, then you see that there are *some* offer bot's who offer a couple games, which isn't exactly alot. The reason is that there isn't alot of people who has found the joy of old warez and is trying to show that to other people. Sometimes, finding the game you are looking for isn't easy, but with some searching then there is a big chance that you find it. If you haven't tried out old warez then i recommend that you try the feeling of having *all* Kings Quest, Ultima games which feels pretty good. The channels on irc which is worth a visit is #oldwarez where so many people speak at each other that it might get confusing. That channel contains alot of bitching and isn't the right channel to ask if someone would like to trade with you. In the other hand if you're looking for them sierra classic's then you could go to #sierra. There are several channels to chose from but a problem can be that in small channels there might be alot of idling so it might get boring, waiting for someone to say something. If you try to search for old warez on www then i recommend that you search for "abandon warez" or "Ring of Ages" which are good sources for old classic games. I will write a list of irc channels, web sites etc that you can try out to make the search for classic's easier.

Review of Hexen 1

Made by: ID software/Raven Software
by Interman

The installation of Hexen is quite easy. Actually, I didn't do anything to configure the sound :)

When you first start up hexen you see an original loading meter which is a skeleton which gets more parts when it has loaded more. You chose the basic things such as what type of character, where you choose between Fighter, Cleric and Mage. I chose Mage. Second you choose difficulty. The first impression isn't so very good where you see a pretty messy place where the pixels aren't very smooth.

I typed in my codes which are:

nra = All weapons
satan = god mode
locksmith = all keys
indiana = all artifacts

Now I'm pretty much like a god, so i try out weapon 1 which is pretty weak, so I move on to weapon 2 which is a freezing thingy which works pretty well, even though you have to fire several times until the enemy is frozen. I move on to weapon 3 which at first impression looks damn cool! Its a lightning shooter. I fire at some guys and they are not among us anymore. Now I move on to weapon 4 which is a skull thing with red huge diamond which fires three fire "bullets" that kill's enemies like ants.

The graphics are OK now. The graphics are basically very dark and "scary" and creates a good "shoot everything that moves" mood. A thing I think is negative in this game is that there aren't enough weapons and enemies. The same guys show up again and again. The Music and Sound is pretty cool and fits the game very good. I sort of counted the total number of enemies in the game and I beleave it contains only 7 different enemies, including the final boss. Another negative thing in Hexen is that there are 31 levels which takes quite a lot of time to complete and may give you a headache several times - at least it gave me that. A positive thing that I liked a lot in Hexen is the ability to turn enemies into pigs (hehe), even though they can also hurt you. Another thing is that you can make the enemy disappear for a while, but they WILL come back.

Good:
The music and sounds are cool.
Cool spells you can use.
Well made levels.

Bad:
Too many levels.
Some weird graphics sometimes.

I give Hexen 1: 82%

EMULATION ACCORDING TO ZOPHAR

By |CaRnagE|

Recently, a new movement has been nearing into focus for most netizens. This movement is the emulation movement. Most any game on any computer, arcade or home videogame system can be played on one's home PC. What makes all of this possible? The hard-working authors of emulators for the PC, Macintosh, Unix and other platforms. Every day, the classic videogame hardware that we know and love is being dissected and programmed into emulators that can load and play most any game that these consoles support.

Let's take, for instance, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The NES has been around a long time and nearly everyone in America has either owned or played one (aside from possibly the Amish). Well now, one can play any NES game on their home PC's, thanks to NESticle, iNES and many other NES emulating programs out on the World Wide Web.

Zophar, of WWW.ZOPHAR.NET, is a forerunner in the emulation scene. His web site informs the readers of daily updates in the emulation world. A user can go on there and quickly see if a new emulator has been written or an old one has been upgraded and then download one or more if they so choose. One can also post messages back and forth with other enthusiasts. And if one doesn't find what they need on that web site, there are many links for them to follow in hopes that they will find what they need.

The following is an interview conducted by myself with Zophar on his thoughts on the emulation scene, his website as well as other interesting topics.

|CaRnagE| - Now... I noticed you've gotten a TON of hits to your web site www.zophar.net... are you surprised at the amount of users hitting the page in search of emulation info?

Zophar - Well you remember back when my site was on ziplink, right? You were the first person that was actually 'up there' that recognized it. In fact, with the oldwarez.com award, if I remember correctly, (my memory's a little hazy), I was a kid when I started the site. So let's see... given that I've been doing ZD since 1996. I can't say that I'm that surprised, because I've seen it gain popularity slowly in that time.

|CaRnagE| - What do you mean 'doing ZD'?

Zophar - Well, ZD stands for Zophar's Domain. I guess a better way of saying it would be 'maintaining', but 'doing' is easier to say.

|CaRnagE| - So basically, you sort of expected this sort of traffic.

Zophar - Yes. In fact, every single server I've left, I really never left; I was kicked off. Ziplink complained that my bandwidth usage was too high so I moved to nobody's silent.darkening server and he kicked me off for some weird reason having to do with someone smurfing it. Then I went to Internexus and was kicked off due to bandwidth reasons as well. Then I went to Malicia and it gets worse. I might have to leave Malicia someday too, they've started to complain about my bandwidth. Think about this for a minute; there are no commercial roms on my site. Not *one*. And my site does 3+ gigs a DAY. I think that says something, yes?

|CaRnagE| - Thats incredible, if not frightening! How do you feel about the users hitting your site? Do you think that most of them are leeches or are they basically very INTO the emulation scene and want to find out more info?

Zophar - Well it used to be that all my emails looked like this: http://www.zophar.net/lame.html

Very depressing. After scaring away all those types of emails with the threat of plastering their names and emails up for the world to see, I started getting mails from intelligent people instead of 'wheres xxx rom' and 'NESTICLE SUCKS!@!'. I started getting thought out emails instead of begging and flames.

|CaRnagE| - Do you feel you need more support economically as well as technologically for your site or do you think you're fine by yourself and don't WANT the help?

Zophar - Well financially I can't get ANY money because any money any banner click makes has to go to the Malicia admin since they host my site for a VERY low price. As far as people helping me with ZD, after I had my site redesign in early 1998 which was tentatively named ZD, I started gathering up more people. If you look on the very bottom of ZD, you can see the entire staff. ZD is way too big for me to handle by myself these days so I have a team of people to do some of this and some of that.

|CaRnagE| - So what do you usually say to people who ask if they can help out with HTML or articles or stuff like that?

Zophar - I usually tell them that all positions are taken. There are some exceptions. If I need help, I try to find someone that I've known on IRC for a while. Infe, _Rza_, [NOAM] and a couple others I've known from IRC. One of them, Bjorn, was a former Archaic Ruins maintainer. Because I like to work with people I trust and get along with [sic].

|CaRnagE| - Are the roms on your site ON YOUR SITE or are they on other people's site and you link to them?

Zophar - The only roms that ZD has are non-commercial, or legalized and they are on ZD. You wont find Super Mario Brothers or Zelda on ZD.

|CaRnagE| - So you don't hold any game ROMs and such?

Zophar - Well we DO, but only legal ones. For isntance, ever hear of Zero Tolerance for Sega Genesis? I emailed the company, had a lot of conversat- ions and they said it was ok for me to post Zero Tolerance on my site. They also gave me a prototype of Zero Tolerance 2 that they never completed.

|CaRnagE| - What would they be getting out of it, though?

Zophar - Nothing. They just had no reason to not release it into the public, because it wasn't generating any money. Another game, for the NES, called 'Elite', a spaceship game, was legalized by the coder of the game. We also e-mailed Galoob the other day and they permitted us to put the GameGenie startup rom on ZD, as long as we included the copyright message. So you see, not all companies are as protective as Nintendo. You can get these freely released roms from ZD. It's on the left hand side under 'roms'.

|CaRnagE| - Well that's cool...glad to know some companies actually look out for the PEOPLE. What is the process that you have to go through every day to find out if new emulators have been released?

Zophar - Well it usually goes like this. I sit at the computer and I connect to my net provider. I open Netscape. I check my mail. A lot of emulator authors or just visitors to ZD e-mail me new emu release news. After I finish doing updates that were e-mailed to me, I check emu news service and emulation camp. If I missed news, those sites usually have it. After that, and doing any updates I read on those sites, I go on IRC and check the topics in emulation channels for news. That's it, basically. And the rest of my staff probably follows a similar procedure.

|CaRnagE| - What do you think about the emulation scene when contrasted against the infantile emu scene only one or two years ago, before MAME even hit the web sites?

Zophar - Well, I tend to think of emulation in two eras. Pre NESticle, and Post NESticle. Everything before April 1997, and everything after. Before NESticle, emulation wasn't nearly as mainstream as it's getting. Hmm, trying to phrase this right... OK I'll say this: Better emulation is a *good* thing, but unfortunately its side effect was, it brought beggars into the masses. People stopped appreciating emulation. They thought, 'Hmm, free nes games! whee!'. 'Why cant all emus be as good as NESticle? snes97 sucks'. Shit like that. Given, Sardu is very talented, I wish I had 5% of his brains. But people shouldn't put DOWN other authors. Heck, let's take Marat Fayzullin for example. Author of iNES, mastergear, VGB, Colem, fMSX and others. If there was no iNES, if he hadn't written the first public nes.doc, which although wasn't the greatest, had no sound info, and so forth, how many other people might have attempted what he attempted? If people like Y0SHi hadn't written their documents... I think I say more about this kind of thing in my articles section.

|CaRnagE| - So where do you see Emulation headed? Everything that can conceivably be emulated HAS been. Do you think that it's just going to be new versions of what's already out or do you think they'll try to emu- late bigger and better machines?

Zophar - I see emulation headed towards bigger and better machines. Already there are 2 serious N64 emulators that are available and psx emulators (PSEmu and one other) as well. Now, I don't AGREE with this as they're forgetting the 'nostalgic' part of emulation and just trying to see if they can emulate BIG consoles on less powerful CPUs. It's shifted onto a 'challenge' for emulator authors. They want to see if it can be done.

|CaRnagE| - As bigger and badder machines are being emulated, the amount of buttons on their joysticks continues to be increased (PSX and N64 for instance)... What do you think should be done to compensate for this on the PC?

Zophar - *plug!!* *plug!!* Buy Microsoft Sidewinders! Only 30$ a piece (now with 20$ rebates = 10$), 10 buttons, and 4 player play, you can't go wrong! I bought 2 :) *End plug!!* *End plug!!*

|CaRnagE| - If you were to emulate one console system or one arcade game that hasnt been emulated as of yet, which one would it be?

Zophar - The Sega CD. My favorite RPGs were on it.

|CaRnagE| - The Saturn, you mean?

Zophar - No, the Sega CD. It connected to the Genesis. It was called the mega CD in Japan. Ya, Sega CD was a 16 bit add-on to the Genesis, Saturn is a standalone 32 bit system.

|CaRnagE| - What do you like being emulated more? Computers or consoles?

Zophar - Consoles. The only computers I've ever owned were PCs. Although I used Macs and Apple II's at school. When many people were playing kings quest 1 on their 286's, I was playing maze craze on atari 2600 =)

Kings Quest 5

Made by Sierra (c)
Size: 8.47 megs
by Interman

Here's number 5 of the Kings Quest games, made by Sierra.

The installation is quite easy, BUT you need to run it with the fix, so don't run kq5.bat if you download the warezed version.

At the startup you see the usual sierra screen; after that the game asks you if you've played Kings Quest 5 before, so I chose no and the intro played.

It was about a wizard dude who sent lightning, etc to a castle and really crashed the place, and after some thunder, the castle flew up in the sky.

When I restarted the game, I told it that I had played KQ 5 before so I started out in a small house. The music isn't anything to celebrate about. You constantly hear some small "ding dung" sounds. There are quite a lot of places you can visit in this game which makes it a bit challanging. There is also a bird thing flying around you, which helps you in several places in the game, so remember to listen to it.

The graphics in KQ5 are good. You can see which people or items you can talk to or pickup etc and that makes the game a bit easier. The game itself isn't easy and may require alot of thinking to complete the game.

In general, I found KQ5 a nice game with a nice story, graphics, sound and difficulty; however, it can become a bit boring.

Good:
Nice graphics.
Many places to visit.
Nice story.

Bad:
The sound isn't that good.
You can see what items you can take/talk to etc.
Might get a bit boring.

I give Kings Quest 5: 83%

Leisure Suit Larry 1 (old version)

Made by Sierra (c)
Size: About 300 kb packed
by Interman

When you start up Larry 1 you get some questions to prevent kids from playing it. The questions are pretty easy so you probably get them fast. When you're done with the questions you see yourself outside a bar. The music is typical Larry music and fits good to the game. After you have played it for like 10 minutes you realize that Larry can be pretty dumb sometimes and won't always do what you want him to do. There are several places to go to such as the casino where you can play the slots, blackjack and sometimes even win quite a lot of cash. You can also lose a lot of money there so beware. In the casino you meet a beautiful woman who rejects you like thrash.. :( You meet several dangers in this game such as the crazy taxi driver, punks in the alleys and others. So i suggest that you think about where you should go and where you shouldn't go. When you down- load Larry 1 you might get some savegames with it, so if you're stuck and feel like cheating then try to restore some of the savegames.

Larry 1 basically contains women, lousy humor and more women. I recommend this game because it's the first of the Larry games and it is also a fun game to play. If you haven't played adventure games like this where you type the commands then it might get a bit hard but with practice anyone can master it.

Good:
Cool Music.
Lots of humor.
Beautiful women.

Bad:
Might get a bit frustrating.
Should have a better way to see inventory etc..

I give Leisure Suit Larry 1: 85%

#Oldwarez has brought its name back!

by nnx

Oldwarez has taken many back to the times they were playing with there XTs and ATs. They can still feel the presence of those games. So what does oldwarez mean? Some people have been pretty disapointed in the channel #Oldwarez because half the people aren't dedicated to oldwarez. Why is this happening? What has #Oldwarez done wrong to lose 3-5% of their population?

#Oldwarez has inspired many people, but these 3-5% leaving are usually really dedicated to oldwarez. They say that #Oldwarez is very unfriendly, or doesn't even think about oldwarez. Some people say the only time they do is when they have OOOs. OOO is usually another christmas where people have dug for their old games, and if they're friendly enough they will shower them onto their friends. As with those 3-5% some have made some new channels just to get back at others. Most of these people really want oldwarez, or they hold loads of oldwarez, and want to trade. Some are just nice, and I have experienced small channels of oldwarez for years, and thanks to them I have good games.

As with me, I have been coming lately to #Oldwarez this month in June 98. This whole year I have ignored #Oldwarez, but it's OOO that has brought us together. This is a time to rejoice #Oldwarez for living up to the name. They brought us OOO 3 this month, and anyone who is generous please contribute to this channel.

Review of OOO3

by Flack

What happens once a year, involves hundreds of people, and gets the participants riled up into a wild frenzy? If you said, "Riots after the NBA finals" ... well okay, you would be partially correct. The actual answer I was looking for was OOO3.

OOO3, or Operation Oldwarez Overload 3, was the third in a series of, well, operation oldwarez overloads. For those who don't know, OOO3 is a time where all the regulars of #Oldwarez load up their offer bots and storm onto EfNet, offering classic software from the past in all the warez channels they can find.

Unfortunately, some of the fun was dampened this year due to #exceed being taken over and some of the other big warez channels were locked down the day of OOO3, so many of the channels #oldwarezers would have filled with glorious classic warez were unreachable. Still, #oldwarez was filled with many dcc bots. OOO3 is one day where you can pick up games that will still fit on a floppy disk.

Some of the people participating this year picked themes; ie: someone always offers Sierra games, someone else offered a ton of MAME games, and I actually had a bot up offering all the XWing games and attachments. OOO3 is a great time to hang around IRC and grab some classic oldwarez you might be looking for.

More importantly though, OOO3 is a time for sharing, and a time to show all the little 0-day warez pups of the world what old warez are all about, which is why the offerbots are placed not only in #oldwarez but also in some of the other warez channels.

Hopefully in the next week or so we'll get some final stats in for OOO3 and see how participation fared versus the last two ooo's. OOO1 happened in February of 1997 and ooo2 was only 4 months later. #3 was held a year later. Hopefully the #oldwarez enthusiasts will go to doing one every 6 months instead of waiting a full year for #4!

Oldradio

by Flack

"It's time for the nightly weather report," Fee says, his voice booming from the Real Audio broadcast.

"For those of you who listen to my show, you know what the weather report is going to be ..." he teases, and people in #oldwarez who are both typing along and listening to the show begin to crack up.

"The weather today is ... FUCKING HOT, yes that's right, it's FUCKING HOT here today and it's going to be FUCKING HOT tomorrow too."

And so goes the new fad known as #oldwarez radio. The Real Audio radio station started out as more of an experiment than anything, running off of Fee's 56k modem. A connection that fast is only good enough for about 3 connections, which is more like a 3 way phone call than a radio station. Since GuiZa has a cable modem, GuiZa offered to host the radio station. Of course, Fee couldn't DJ *all* the time, and GuiZa seized the opportunity, snagging some more of the open time slots. [GrAfFiX] was quick to follow, and shortly afterwards, time slots were filled 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in 3-hour slots.

Leave it to ventrex to save the day (once again). Seeing the potential of #Oldwarez having its own radio station, ventrex moved the Real Audio server up to a box at his work, giving our DJ's the bandwidth of an OC-3 and the ability to have over a hundred connections at a time now. By linking the radio station to pnm://radio.oldwarez.com, the station quit being the dream of just one person, and began being a station both by and for the people of #oldwarez.

For those of you who don't know how Real Audio radio stations work, here's a brief, non-technical description. A Real Audio server is set up somewhere that has a lot of bandwidth (the corner of ventrex's office, for example). The DJ streams up his broadcast to the server. Listeners connect to the server, and listen to the broadcast in real time on their PC's.

First, someone figured out how to play CD's over Real Audio. Playing MP3s, sitting in MIRC, and running Real Audio tended to lag out the DJ's, but someone figured out you could have a 2nd machine sitting close by to "pipe" mp3's into the input of the broadcasting machine. DJ's scurried to Radio Shack to pick up dozens of adapters and RCA cables, so they could play their records and tapes to the #oldwarez masses. Some of the current DJ's are even experimenting with hooking up phones for making live calls, and having more than one DJ connect at a time, for a type of "call in" show or possibly even a talk show. Leave it to the oldschoolers to find new ways to use and abuse technology.

There have been a few complaints about the radio station - one is that only the ops got time slots, and no users were allowed to broadcast. Another is that since the DJ's got 3 hour slots, if someone is online who is playing music that a listener doesn't like, they aren't going to listen for 3 hours. One of the final complaints is that the radio station is causing a lot of bickering between DJ's.

The first argument about only ops getting time slots is a touchy matter. According to [Filter], "ops aren't the only people who are allowed to broadcast - it's just that the slots were opened up on a first come, first serve basis, and that just happens to be who grabbed up the slots."

This worked out great in the beginning, when people were hyped about doing Oldwarez Radio around the clock. Some people feel like they are still not getting a chance to broadcast, even when no one else is on.

"The radio has been dead all morning,"

says Remission,

"so why won't they let me broadcast?"

Another complaint that people have had is with the 3 hour time slots. Of course, I predicted early on that the people who were good at DJ'ing would stick to the 3 hour slots, and other people would drop off to 1-2 hours, leaving either dead space or open slots for new DJ's to come in. I was right about the 3 hour shows not lasting except for a few people, but it seems right now that only a few new DJ's are being added, and in only three weeks, a lot of dead air space has invaded the air waves.

The third complaint that has been aired out in the channel more than once is that some of the ops have been taking jabs at one another about each others' shows. Now personally, I think a DJ has to listen to his audience, because without the audience, there's a lot of unemployed DJ's. But instead of criticism of the actual shows or playlists, I've just seen people who don't like each other in the first place attacking each other's shows. I for one can say that I've listened to almost every DJ (haven't got up early enough to catch Lunatic yet) and can say that some are better than others, but everyone I've heard has had at least one show (and I hate the midnoon techno show, but it's still bearable.)

So on a small scale, we have a radio station, pure and simple. We have DJ's playing music, and people tuning in though. On a much larger scale if you step back and look at it, we have something *extremely* cool. We have the freedom of speech, to play, listen, or talk about whatever we want without ANY regulation. No FCC telling us what 7 words we can't say here. No commercial sponsors eating up airtime. No artists paying millions of dollars just to get their songs played. This is radio in it's simplest form, just people playing music that other people want to listen to. When I think about it I begin to get all excited, thinking about "Oh man, this could replace regular radio stations someday, just people all over the Internet playing their music for people to hear, for FREE!" Of course, then I stare at my icon for IPhone and wonder why I still pay for long distance calls.

Radix

Made by: Epic Mega Games
Size: 7.81
by Interman

This is another game from Epic, who also released Tyrian 1 and 2 which I almost fell in love with, so I had pretty good expectations for this one.

I installed the Hybrid version which has its own installer which works perfect. The sound setup was very easy, and that is something I like in a game. Just before you get to the main menu you see an anti piracy message (hehe).

You get the typical music you expect from such a game and it fits well. On the main menu, you can choose between several things such as demo, top ten, options, network play, loading and several others. When you select new game, you get to the difficulity section where you first enter your name and now select between:

I can't do this! I just can't do this!!
I'm as ready as i'll ever be.
Another glorious day in the core.
Lets kick some xenomorphic butt.

I chose "I'm as ready as i'll ever be."

Now you get to choose between three episodes. I chose number three. After playing for 2 minutes I realized that it was a damn hard episode, so I went back to the main menu, chose easy and episode 1.

When you start up you are in a sort of a valley with small hills, etc even though it has huge walls on the side so I assume it isn't a valley. I recommend that you use the keyboard + the mouse which makes the game better. The levels are pretty simply made but still entertaining.

I took 2 minutes to complete level one so I suggest that you chose normal in difficulity. There are several enemies in Radix including 2-3 mines, walking troopers, sort of flying robots. The game does not have a lot of blood - only when you kill the troopers then they sort of explode and guts are flying. Controlling the craft is easy and you can turn 180 degrees in like a fourth of a second. I completed level 2 in 5 minutes without any problems. I think Radix is a fun game to play and will probably keep you shooting for hours and hours.

Positive:
Nice graphics.
Some levels aren't very complex and some are very complex making the game challenging.
Alot of levels to play.
Good difference between the difficulties.

Negative:
The game is sort of simply made.
I think there shuld have been more humor and more humanity in it.

I give Radix - Beyond the Void: 89%

Video Arcade Game Collecting

by Flack

So, you have more MAME roms than you have friends. Instead of saying grace efore dinner, you shout "Red Elf shot the food!". When people talk about "old fighting games", you think about Karate Champ before Mortal Kombat. You really, really like old games, but don't know the next step to take.

Well, for me, it was to actually buy a video arcade game. When people hear that, half of them say "Oh my gawd, that's awesome!" and the other half say "Oh my gawd, you're insane." Of course, when I tell them that I now have 7 video arcade games, then almost all of them think that I'm insane at that point.

About two years ago I saw an ad in the newspaper advertising a video game auction in my town (Oklahoma City). I had never heard of one and didn't know how it operated or how much the games would run, but I decided to go anyway. When I got there I found a large warehouse with around 400 video games, each with a number on them. The auction was scheduled to start at 11 am, but it said you could arrive as early as 8 am. The reason you can arrive early is that they hook up ALL the video games and you can play them free for 3 hours! This in itself was worth the trip, as my friend and I played several rounds of Karate Champ, Donkey Kong, and other great classic games for free. Also, I noted a couple of games that had some problems (joysticks were broken, sound didn't work, etc) and wrote down their numbers, so I knew not to bid on them.

Right around 11 am, the auction began. The auctioneer wandered from machine to machine, asking for opening bids and then driving up the prices (duh, you know how an auction works, I'm sure). Anyhow, one of my favorite old games, Shinobi, came up for bid. The opening bid was $100, but no one bid. The auctioneer lowered the opening bid to $75. Still, no one bid. $50. $25. I raised my hand sheepishly and bid on Shinobi for $25. No one else bid. "Going once, going twice, sold for $25." I had bought my first video game! I continued through the auction, and ended up with 3 games that afternoon.

I got the information from the company and they said that they tour across the US all the time, and would be back in about 3 months. Sure enough, 3 months later there was another auction, and I bought another 3 games.

[What to look for]

I am by no means an expert on collecting video arcade games, but I do own 7 so I know more than some people (grin). Anyhow, here is what I have discovered... any video game between the years of approx 1983 and 1993 can be had very inexpensively. Any video game not in the original cabinet, or has a minor problem can be had very inexpensively. In other words, any game newer than about 1993 or any classic game in pristine condition is going to cost you a buttload. For example, I saw a perfectly working Centipede game go for about $150 because the cabinet was all black with- out any decals. I saw another one with the original decals on the cabinet go for around $550. Now, do you care about playing Centipede or do you want nice decals? If you are slightly technical, you can pick up games with maybe a broken joystick or more commonly, broken plexiglass in front of the monitor, and get a really good bargain on them. I had never even seen inside a video game before, and fixed a broken joystick on one of my fighting games.

So if you are looking at video games, be sure and test out all the buttons and sticks and quarter slots, etc, because this *is* an auction and once you get the machine, it's yours, all problems included. Make sure that the machine powers up, that the monitor isn't too faint, and that the cabinet isn't absolutely falling apart. Also, check the game for sound - many games that the sound chips have gone out on are a bitch to repair, and you will probably end up buying an entirely new motherboard to fix it.

One thing I learned the hard way is: no matter how much you like them, never ever buy a vector based game (ie. Tempest and Star Wars). They break easily, are expensive to fix, and have had a lot of abuse. Even if it's working it might not be shortly and they suck to get fixed.

[What to expect and what to take]

If you are serious about buying a couple of old games, you should take a pickup (I have a Nissan pickup and you can fit 2 machines easily in the bed, both standing up.) I would advise you not to lie them down, since they can get jostled and wires can get disconnected and monitors can break pretty easily. Anyhow, take a pickup and some rope and possibly a blanket or two. Also, some auctions don't have enough power outlets for all the games, so when I went I took a power strip, a bright orange extension cord, and a flashlight to see inside the machines.

[What to pay]

Like I said before, if you buy games between the years of '83 and '93, you can get some pretty good deals on video arcade game machines. Below is a list of the games I bought, the prices, and what (if anything) was wrong with them, and what it cost me to fix them.

Elevator Action - $100 - No Problems

Championship Street Fighter II - $25 - Flakey Motherboard (bad colors)
New motherboard for the above machine at the same auction - $20

Mat Mania - $25 - broken plexiglass in front of the monitor
New piece of plexiglass - $6

Power Assault II - $100 - No Problems (this is an anime fighting game) in
a Punch Out box with 2 monitors, which is why it was expensive.

Shinobi - $25 - no sound (never fixed - too expensive)
Star Wars - $10 - non-working (vector monitor was screwed - didn't fix)
Tetris Clone - $50 - perfect condition.

Most of my games were really cheap because they were not in the original cabinets and/or needed small repairs. If you buy games from an individual instead of auction, it might cost a little more, but the game might be in better condition. To give you an idea of some of the other games that I saw sold, I saw a nice Ms PacMan machine for for $500, a couple of Galaga machine go for around $300, and a table top Crystal Castles machine go for $700 (which is cheap, actually). I saw a Mortal Kombat II machine go for $1150, a Killer Instinct box go for $2500, and a Daytona USA game for (yes, this is right) $25,000.

Of course, screw those new games. It's old games forever. Sure, you can't save your place or punch game genie codes into your average video game, but there's nothing like the glow of 6 monitors in my garage displaying high scores when people come over to visit.

FUTURE PRETENSE -- What's in store for Windows after 98

By Lincoln Specter

You've been reading about Windows 98 for the last year, and pretty soon you'll be able to buy it and try it for yourself. And that means it's time for us in the computer press to start writing about the operating system that will truly transform the way we live and work -- the big change, the revolutionary paradigm, the OS that promises to do all of the wonderful things that earlier OSes failed to keep their promises about -- Windows 00.

I based this article on an early alpha copy of Windows 00 that was sent to me by an irate former Microsoft employee who wishes to remain jobless. The CD was smuggled out of the Microsoft offices in a bag of money and transported by a courier disguised as a former love of President Clinton.

The first thing you notice when you load Windows 00 is the sound of your modem, for this OS is totally integrated with the Internet. In fact, you cannot run it without an Internet connection. If you do not have an ISP, Windows 00 automatically signs you up with the brand new Microsoft TCP/IP Access Kilobit Environment (MSTAKE). If you already have an ISP account, Windows 00 cancels it before signing you up with MSTAKE.

The once-familiar desktop is gone, replaced by an Internet Explorer-type utility called the Internet Utility Desktop. Everything you do in Windows 00, from reading e-mail to formatting floppies, you do through IUD. Launching a program is as simple as visiting a Web site: Just type in a long URL, wait for large graphics to download, and get told that the server is busy.

For instance, consider how you defrag your hard drive at the Disk Defragmenter page. Here, under a banner advertisement for Microsoft Office 2001 ("Use the competition, and we'll format your hard drive"), are options to optimize individual pages or the whole site. Check the latter option, click Start, and a ProActiveX applet starts uploading the contents of your hard drive to the MSTAKE server, where your files are defragged and checked for copyright violations. Then everything is downloaded back to you, complete with a new password and suggestions on Microsoft products you might want to buy.

Channels have also been greatly enhanced. Windows 00 frees you from the burdensome step of having to subscribe to a particular channel in order to recieve it. Thanks to its new Shove technology, the operating system will constantly feed you information from all the major news and entertainment sources that could meet the strict technical specifications for sending Microsoft checks.

NT PROMISES

Not all of Windows 00's improvements are Internet based. This will be the first consumer-oriented version of Windows designed around the NT kernel. It will be far less likely to crash, as it will be nearly impossible to boot.

To make the NT kernel program more accessible to the average user, Microsoft has wrapped a layer of user-friendly interfaces around it. Windows 00 will be the public's first introduction to the wonders of Beginner- Engineered NT or BENT.

How does this differ from conventional NT? Here's one example. Micro- soft usability studies have shown that semiexperienced users found press- ing Ctrl+Alt+Delete to be a difficult and nerve-wracking way to start a computing session. So with BENT, that's been changed to Ctrl+Alt+CapsLock +5+ScrollLock+Shift. To turn off the computer, you press Ctrl+Alt+CapsLock +5+ScrollLock+Backspace.

As befits an NT- and Internet-based OS, Windows 00 takes security very seriously. After you've pressed those keys, Windows 00 will ask for your initialization password. To guard against hackers trying to break into your system, an incorrect guess will remove all your sensitive data. Once you've passed this hurdle and brought up IUD, you'll be asked for your application access password, which, as an extra precaution, cannot be the same as your initialization password. If you enter the wrong word here, Windows 00 will wipe your hard drive clean.

Finally, to access any of the data in your My Documents folder (which is actually a mirror of your Not Really Mine folder, residing on the Microsoft server), you must enter your data-authorization-and-permission- requested-to-go-about-my-business password, which again must be unique. An incorrect entry here results in a visit from the FBI.

As an added precaution, Windows 00 automatically changes all three passwords once a quarter. Should you hold off buying your next computer until Windows 00 becomes available? Definitely. The longer you go without a computer, the happier you'll be. If you already have a computer, should you upgrade to Windows 00 when it becomes available? If you want to be on the cutting edge, use the latest software, and live in a stable, secure, Internet-enabled environment, you will have no other choice. If you want to get work done, don't even consider it.