Rememberies

[An Unicorn]

Remember when I remembered things before?

Well I still remember other things not clearly enough to find them but just enough to have not yet let them forever disappear into oblivion!

[An Unicorn]

1. A "learn to doodle" series that seemed very mod '60s/70s style in its lettering and drawings, and it showed how to "construct" basic doodles from even more basic shapes, and there were no words describing it, just a baseline with the parts added below and the doodle to that point plus the new parts above it. I think the title was [Some Man's Name]'s Guide to Drawing..." and I remember the cover of one of them being "... Monsters" and it was some sort of King Kong drawn on there.

[An Unicorn]

(I'm almost certain I have some books at my father's house, but we're still not quite on speaking terms)

[blombluss]

I think the title was [Some Man's Name]'s Guide to Drawing..." and I remember the cover of one of them being "... Monsters" and it was some sort of King Kong drawn on there.

Adolf Hitler's Guide To Drawing?

[endar]

And zen ve draw einen line through ze Sudetenland for ze Deutsche liebensraum!

[endar]

etc

[blombluss]

And zen ve draw einen line through ze Sudetenland for ze Deutsche liebensraum!

Heh!

If only he'd have been accepted by that Viennese art academy...

[CandyDarling]

In a bid to resurrect this thread, here is something I remembered recently. And I found it again on Youtube

Sinclair User coin-op soundtracks from Virgin Games free tape cassette

I would sometimes buy Sinclair User as well as Your Sinclair - not because I liked it, but for any demos or free games they might have (which increased exponentially as time went on, some will remember). One month (November 1989, to be exact - well, October, as UK mags are dated a month in advance) it came with a second tape that was audio only, and had loads of excellent coin-op arcade tunes on it.

It was meant to be a part of a competition of some kind where you listened to the whole tape, rang a phone line, and worked out which random snippet they'd play to you off the tape to win a prize. Only that I couldn't be arsed with that, and preferred to just listen to the tape. EXCEPT - it turns out that almost all of the music on it was a collection of re-creations taken from Amiga conversions of those arcade games! Ones developed / released by Virgin Games, I'm assuming.

Despite that it's still an excellent tape. The Amiga-ness should have been clear from the extreme stereo panning, but I didn't have an Amiga at this point. The second track in particular I really like, and is technically an original theme as the source game didn't have a proper main tune or something.

The other memory I have of this is that for some reason, early in 1990 I brought the tape with me and a little tape player / recorder to a family wedding. I didn't actually take it to the church, but I kept it in the hotel room where my family were staying (I want to say it was somewhere in Norwich). I accidentally played a short blast of it REALLY LOUD quite late at night, before being roared at by my Dad to turn it off, as if I wasn't already scrambling for the stop button.

[endar]

excellent.

that was the only reason i bought those 2 magazines as well. I still cringe at some of the writing, especially in Your Sinclair. Some of it was extremely flat-topped.

I never really bothered with Crash magazine as i don't think they did cover tapes.

That is some blatant Amiga music there.

[dng]

How wonderful

[An Unicorn]

I know I already remembered it on the old dead n3ta, but it looks like I never bookmarked it, so:
2. That book from the early '80s with all those "learn to program in Basic" games that was full of the weird techno-absurdist drawings that the illustrator was very proud of and featured prominently on his website which he somehow still maintains today.

[CandyDarling]

that was the only reason i bought those 2 magazines as well. I still cringe at some of the writing, especially in Your Sinclair. Some of it was extremely flat-topped.

I know what you mean by that, although before Mr Mars Bar And Salt And Vinegar Crisp Sandwich joined the magazine, the writing could be quite charming at times. At its worst you'd get future creator-of-Nuts-magazine Matt Beilby calling himself "Gadgy The Ninja Duck", and people making feeble jokes at the fact that fashion was moving on from the 1980s and the Happy Mondays were now a thing, but it hit some notable highs at times. Duncan McDonald was the staff writer from 1987-ish up til 1990, and I still love his Viz-esque comic strips. I only just found out that he died last October.

They were always rubbish at actually reviewing things, although there were some good straight-ahead reviews in its final days. But of course by then you had Mr Eating An Entire Bar Of Cake Frosting I Got From Farm Foods smearing his phlegm everywhere as well.

I never really bothered with Crash magazine as i don't think they did cover tapes.

They only adopted them shortly before Newsfield closed - I think the first copy of it I ever bought was in 1990, and only because there was a tape on it. The company went under in 1991, partially due to that mad horror story about a creepy man eating a pigeon or whatever it was.

[Bruce Sato]

Does anyone have recommendations for archives of old computer game magazines? I know archive.org has a load of things like C&VG which I'll be hitting up, but I'm interested in reading as wide a range as possible, for a very vague project that I'm just starting to think up.

[blombluss]

*scratches chin*

Not really, no.

I mean there's this:

http://www.zzap64.co.uk/zzap1/zzap1.html

But most of the issues, as well as The Games Machine, A.C.E, ie the stuff I'm most interested in, is available through archive.org.

I can't help any more than that, I'm afraid, Sir! Soz!

[CandyDarling]

Rllmuk's Retro & Arcade Gaming forum has a stickied thread featuring someone's website of games magazine scans. I think that fills some gaps that archive.org has. Also more recently there's this page that has every Edge from 1993 to 2001.

[vom]

This may have been the first computer magazine I bought? I certainly remember the games on the cover tape

https://archive.org/details/68-your-com ... e/mode/2up

I think I mostly bought YC and then Commodore Format

[CandyDarling]

https://archive.org/details/your-sinclair-28

This was the first computer magazine I ever bought. Karnov on the cover, Advanced Lawnmower Simulator "reviewed" inside. I had to skip the following month's as that had a page 3 girl holding a whip on the front, but I picked it up again from this one:

https://archive.org/details/your-sinclair-30

...and I kept buying it until 1990, whereupon I got a year's subscription instead, and I let that run out at some point in 1991. I seem to recall that one month during that time, Linda Barker had to send an additional letter to all us subscribers as Future insisted that something she wrote as an obvious joke in the previous issue's sub letter was a potentially dangerous thing easily imitated by children. I can't recall what it was, but I definitely remember thinking that her bosses were freaking out over nothing.

When the final issue came out in 1993 I couldn't find it anywhere. When Amiga Power's final one was published three years later, I did see that in a WH Smiths while on holiday near Great Yarmouth, but I didn't buy it as I couldn't justify the purchase to my dad (who would have raised a fuss over me buying a magazine for a computer I no longer used). Still, at least it didn't mean I was indirectly supporting someone who would later [THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH HAS BEEN CENSORED BY MY LAWYERS]

Incidentally, I ordered the late (weep) Duncan McDonald's book recently off Amazon, and it arrived yesterday.

[dng]

I started getting your sinclair in about 1991 and got it all the way to the end. i think at some point i must hav ethrown them out because i've never seen them since. Porbbaly when I threw out the entire 90s worth of NMEs and melody makers

(there's still loads of old edge magazines up in our loft, from 1996 to about 2002 or so, for some reason)

[dng]

what was the name of that videogame website, circa 2004, that some of us used to read

[dng]

i can't remember what it was called at all

[dng]

(not board of biffo, obviously)

[dng]

nor anything biffo related neither

[endar]

rllmuk?

[endar]

Way of the Rodent?

[dng]

that was it. hooray

[dng]

its even still there, somehow

https://wayoftherodent.com

[endar]

kind of

[dng]

although it seems like none of the old content is

[dng]

but thank you daren that information had been fully deleted from my brain and now it's back in its right place i suppose

[endar]

hooray

[endar]

i went to a Rodent meet and awards ceremony once. It was in a nice pub in London and seemed really busy and popular, and Swizpig just happened to be there as well.

Good times. It was 2008, i was 29 (January).

[dng]

now all the pubs and websites are dead and there is nothing left at all

[endar]

the only things left alive are owned by Russians, Saudis or Chinese

[dng]

or jeff bezos, lurking in his secret vault in the hollow heart of the earth

[dng]

slowly accumulating everything with a joyless stare

[An Unicorn]

but thank you daren that information had been fully deleted from my brain and now it's back in its right place i suppose

That's what rememberies are for!

[swizpig]

i went to a Rodent meet and awards ceremony once. It was in a nice pub in London and seemed really busy and popular, and Swizpig just happened to be there as well.

Good times. It was 2008, i was 29 (January).

I remember this. Wasn't Biffo there as well?

I had an interesting chat with someone about Jeff Minter, and the popping outside for a smoke during when people started singing the Portal song

[endar]

Biffo wasn't there (as far as i remember), but we were talking about him, about how he's a trouble maker wherever he goes.

I remember the Jeff Minter chat as well. About his "love" for his farm animals.

I don't remember the Portal song though. I must have blocked out that particular trauma

[richschnauzer]

nice

https://twitter.com/woodg31/status/1459 ... 46759?s=20

[richschnauzer]

nice

https://twitter.com/woodg31/status/1459 ... 46759?s=20

https://twitter.com/woodg31/status/1462 ... 85194?s=20

https://twitter.com/woodg31/status/1462 ... 66279?s=20

The 1972 version! Lots of memories here - particularly used to see that record player a lot in the mid-80s at school jumble sales! We also had the Wendy House.

[endar]

Those F1 cars look lovely

and i'm sure i had a similar "Audition" organ type thing

[Pual]

I was watching top of the pops in late 90s and when it finished I said to my housemate that I thought that Shania Twain was the only act on it that would still be going 20 years later.

[Pual]

Anyway my sort of mother-in-laws sort of widow is going to see Shania Twain next week.

[vom]

I'm quite impressed by that

[Pual]

I can’t remember who else was on it - probably they’re all touring still forever

[Pual]

Apparently new kids on the block have a new song

[blombluss]

I'm quite impressed by that

Whereas That Don't Impress Me much!!!

[richschnauzer]

[blombluss]

I remember the fad for flying televisions in schools.

[richschnauzer]