Conference 7.286::atarist

    Yeah,
    	It turns the text at the top of the desktop upside down. I don't
    know if it does anything more nasty, or how likely it is to have copied
    itself onto other disks. Luckily, the only think I used on this months
    disk was the formatting program that formats a disk with 82 tracks and
    a virus killer in the boot track.
    
    		Stuart P.
    
    P.S. Did anyone get the James Bond game demo working ? or was it the
    virus that stopped the first game screen from loading ?

    Hmmm... I've used the disk a fair bit. I suppose I ought to check a few
    of my disks!!!

    I subscribe to the mag and I got a letter about a week ago it
    appologised for the virus and provided an early January disk which has
    a virus killer on it. The virus does nothing really nasty but it does
    copy itself onto other disks and could therefore damage a real boot
    sector. The magazine have offered to repair any damaged games in the
    cover letter. 
    I cought it after it had infected only 2 disks.
    
    Regards.

    Both Pat Kean and I have failed to get the James Bond working, gives
    nice messages, starts further loading, then goes into a whine. 
    
    I also found the multiple ACC loader (can't remember name) is corrupt,
    I can't even read it. Has any any better luck with this?.
    
    Richard

    Which issue of the Mag are we talking about?  I have the issue dated
    December 90, but I actually bought it in November.  Do I have the
    virus, or is it the month before?
    
    If I have the virus, how come I have'nt seen its effects yet?
    
    Alex

The December edition of the magazine distributed the virus. The 
letter I got indicated that not all copies of the disk were 
affected. I had not noticed anything on my disk but when I ran 
the January disk (It came with the letter) it indicated that the 
disk was affected and found two others.

My advice is if you must use the disk turn your system off after 
using it and before inserting any other disk. When the January 
mag is available (About 12th December) run the virus killer over 
the december disk to check if it was present. If it was then do a 
full sweep of all your disks. (Take care with Games and self 
loading disks).

Regards   Kev.

    Thanks, Kev
    
    When I got home, I ran my virus killer over it and found the virus.
    
    Interestingly, although I had done quite a lot with the disk
    (Distributing its contents to other disks etc) I could not find any
    other disks which had been infected.  I'm beginning to wonder if I had
    a non-infectious virus (a mutant version perhaps?)
    
    Alex
    
    

    Can you read the ACCessory loader (can't remeber the name), and does
    the SPY program work OK for you?. 
    
    On the disk I've got SPY gets so far then stops dead with a howl, and
    the ACCessory loader is unreadable!.
    
    Richard

    It does more than turn the text upside down as I discovered at my cost
    (in time wasted). If you use Eternal ram disk you can't. Normal RAM
    disks are OK. After taking the Atari to pieces, reseating all chips,
    messing about for hours on end I settled for a normal RAM disk. Then I
    read this note, went home, disinfected all disks (there were quite a
    few I had infected in my attempts to get Eternal to work), and bingo!
    Eternal works again.
    From now on, any disk I get from anywhere will be subjected to the
    Virus Killer, which incidentally I got from a free magazine disk.
    ...Howard

    RE .8
    I had not tried either the accessory loader or SPY until last night. 
    The original disc has 81 tracks and I got a "faulty disk" message from
    my copier programme when it tried to read the last track.  Both SPY and
    ACCSEL are stored in archive form.  I was unable to copy the ACCSEL.ARC
    to any other disk.  I copied and dearced SPY ok but it bombed when I
    tried to run it - I suspect this was because I am running a mono
    system.
    
    If I manage to get either of these to run successfully at any time in
    the future I will let you know.
    
    Alex
    

    
    Hi,
    
    This monthe ST user has an addendum regarding problems with the Spy who
    love me game.  APPARENTLY you have to put all the dearc'd files in a
    folder called ???? (My mind has just gone blank!). Ill look it up
    tonight.
    
    Cheers
    
    Pat K.
    

    >>>...in a folder called ????? <<<<
    
    In a folder called FOLDER.SPY... I did this and it still didn't work so
    maybe I had a corrupt copy anyway.
    
    Jonathan

    Well I got it to work O.K. (but only after switching everything off !)
    
    I put everything EXCEPT spy.prg into the folder (The folder
    instructions where on the disk NOT in the mag).
    
    Now...... Has anybody got this months Defender II to work ?? It 'bombs'
    out on the title screen for me.
    
    Does this Mag ever get anything right ?? Is ST Format any better ?? (At
    least I spent this Christmas playing INTERPHASE).
    
    		Stuart P.

    
    Hi Stuart,
    
    
    Since the demise of the ST World, I have been buying ST USER. I think
    without exception, that it is the biggest rip-off ever. The editorial
    staff are treating their customers with contempt. If anyone dares to
    write a letter of complaint they are abused in the editorial replies to
    the letters.
    
    I thought the worst piece they did was last month's effort on monitors.
    There was at least one grave technical or grammar error per line!, I
    always thought monitors had red green and blue phosphors, STUSER thinks
    they have yellow. 
    
    The "MASTERCLASS" article on CALAMUS was trivial, covering just a
    little more than how to start the program. (The idea was to create a
    piece of headed notepaper, they even got the description wrong compared
    with the example they showed!)
    
    The review on the new CALLIGRAPHER was little more than a reprint of
    the publicity sheet. There was no mention of its multicolumn
    capability, and little on its table generation and formula creation.
      - again an exercise in triviality!
    
    The "technical" help section is awful! Many of the queries are the old
    chestnuts, ST USER cannot even give answers to the simplest queries.
    
    Some of the P.D. software they give away is very early revision,
    (ARCSHELL is one example). To make matters worse they "gave away" the
    entire QUICK suite of utilies as PD this month, when in fact they are
    SHAREWARE offerings.  
    
    The reason for their lack of competance was revealed over the last two
    months. Most of their experienced staff have "up and left" since the
    takeover of ST World. (In this Months STUSER they were appealing for
    authors to submit articles, and they were also advertising full time
    jobs there!)
    
    It can only get better!
    
    However if you want a different style of read, may I suggest you try  
    "ST APPLICATIONS", This is a new monthly journal published by the ST Club
    in Nottingham. IT should be appearing in newsagents from next month, or 
    it can be ordered fromthe ST Club. It costs 1.50, the December edition 
    has 60 pages. It is set by TIMEORKS and printed on a HP Deskjet Plus. It 
    is a remakable example of how the ST can be used to produce a very high 
    class DTP document.
    
    If anyone in DECpark wants to borrow it, its on my desk! 
    
    regards
    
    Pat K.

    re .13
    
    How far have you got with Interphase ?? Level 4 is a right B*stard. I
    managed to finish it but flew into the 'connecting coridor' to get to
    level 5 with not enough power and so have had to start again Aaaaaaagh.
    Is there a trick to it ?? Good Game though !!!
    
    re .14
    
    Well I regularly get both ST Format which is my favourite, and ST User.
    I much agree with Pat's comments, but feel that there is always going
    to be something of interest in either of them. It is a personal view,
    but I wish that ST Format would dedicate a little less of its print
    to games reviews. I am not a great games-er and find 50+ % of the copy
    used for games a pity. I do however realise that some game addicts may
    well have differing opinions 8^)
    
    Jonathan

	Just before Christmas I bought the latest copy of ST Format magazine
which had two free floppies attached to the front. Inside was a very smug
article about how the virus got into the ST User free floppy and this went on
to say how this sort of thing just could not happen with their own free floppies
because of their very strict quality control...However, both of the free
floppies attached to the front cover of the magazine were those which should
have been given away with AMIGA Format...

    I have to agree that when I read the articles in ST Format relating to
    the Virus distributed by ST User my thought was how petty. Such tit for
    tat punching below the belt cannot do any good at all and I seem to
    recall that in the early days of ST/AMIGA Format, at least one virus
    slipped though the net.
    
    The average age of staff on both STF and STU seems to be very low...
    which I applaud... I am all for young entreprenuers (sp) but it is at
    times like this that I wish they would grow up a little.
    
    Jonathan

    RE: a few back
    
    My copy of DEFENDER from the STUSER floppy bombs too. Wasn't awfully
    bothered since it's only a playable demo. My experience of those are
    that you just get into them and...that's all folks!
    
    RE: the slating STUSER has received in the last few replies
    
    In mitigation, I was quite impressed with the way they handled the virus
    incident. Being on their subscription list, I received a letter of
    apology plus the January disk (with the antidote) only a couple of
    weeks after I'd received the December mag. They then proceeded to
    deliver a second disk with the January copy. I felt they grovelled
    quite nicely over that.
    
    B.t.w. I take out a subscription 'cos I'd probably buy the mag anyway
    and, if you choose your timing to renew the subscription, you can pick
    up a good freeby if you're lucky. This time, I got a free copy of
    Voodoo Nightmare - nice game. An alternative, at the time, was a 60%
    discount off a new mouse which had a list price of about �30.
    
    Ian.

    i've decided not to buy anymore mags with disks stuck to the front.
    if i had the energy and really cared, i'd write to the publishers
    and tell them.
    
    i have yet to receive anything worth having, even when it works, which,
    as discussed in this note is infrequent.  those which are worth a look
    are the pd or pd-type full programs.  these are usually relegated to
    about 1/10 of the disk in order to make room for the nearly-playable
    demo of one of their advertiser's latest games.  and on top of that
    there's a fair chance of getting a virus. 
    
    i wish they'd all drop the disk, drop the price, and help with
    promoting pd distributors.

    				--dd
    

    Defender worked fine for me. I assume it's an OS problem you lot have
    got... I've got quite an old machine...
    
    This months ST FORMAT disk was quite impressive...
    
    GFA Basic V2, a database system (not sure what the name was), some neat
    accessories and a front end to the old speech synth demo. For 3 quid
    you can't really complain... oh yeah, it also contained a demo of a
    game "Champion of the Raj" or something like that... from level 9. An
    incredible dissapointment from a company that used to write the be3st
    adventures around.

    Re: Defender.
    
    I finally got it to work by coping the program to another disk, so I
    don't know if this means that under some OS's their 'anti virus'
    program in the boot block messes things up.
    
    While GFA Basic V2 is nice, it's now the *3rd* copy of it I've got off
    of front cover disks. With all those PD programs out their, why are
    Format and User not only distributing programs already given out by the
    other mag, but also giving out what they've given out before !
    
    Now, if only somebody sellotaped a copy of the GFA Basic manual to the
    front cover !
    
    		Stuart P.

    I've never seen GFA basic V2 on a cover disk before. I saw V1 on an ST
    Format disk before though!
    
    Most of the Anti-Virus bootsectors are simply routines that put a
    message on the screen and the theory is that if the message DOESN'T
    come up then you've got a virus! I wouldn't have thought it's the
    bootsector causing you the problem. It could simply be the OS version
    incompatibility with Defender.
    
    I think the mags should start putting good "demos" on the cover disks.
    They're much more fun than the usual format programs, replacement file
    selector utilities, sprite editors etc that you usually get!!!
    
    Or maybe if they offered a reasonable cash sum for new programs they
    publish on the cover disks they might get a few more "scoops".

    I like mags with disks on the front.  Most computer mags today cost
    2 to 3 pounds anyway even if I dont use the software I just format
    the disk and use it so its fair value for money. 
    
    I agree with some of the feelings raised about the quality of the
    software on the disks.  I have used very little software on the
    disks provided, it does, however, give me the chance when they provide
    demo versions of software to try before buying.
    
    What I dont like, however, has been the change of ST Format and User.
    At one time they where quality publications now they are becoming
    game review magazines.  
    
    Chris