UCM23
.tHE .sIRIUS .cYBERNETICS .cORPORATION
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THE (FORMER) GERMAN ATARI SCENE ON THE NET
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At last here it comes... My "ultimate" german scene homepage review, so often
announced and never done, untill now. I have to admit that it wasn't easy to do
this one since I had to rewrite this article at least two times from scratch.
Since I needed so long several pages disappeared and this was lowering also my
motivation. Now I'm able to offer a survey over the german (ex) Atari group
pages, not as big as I wanted it, and not as detailed as well, since I decided
to kick out members pages in the end as the most of them don't deal the Atari
contents mostly.
I have checked all pages and at least now in October 2oo2 they're all still here
and running. I checked the design, the offered features (like stories, downloads
and so on), the actuality and the need to surf them on.
Enough crap... let's start!
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ACF DESIGN TEAM
url ........................ http://www.atarihq.de/acf/
maintained ................. Jacky of ACF
status of the band ......... Dead! Last official release in 1995
last update of the site .... unknown, quite long time ago
ACF was a legendary team on the ST but loosing its creative core with AGENT T
and TAO the band lost the ground as well and never came back to life really, so
they matched it only to bring one name into demo history "Just Buggin'", their
other releases before or after "Just Buggin'" never got that big reputation...
It is a shame to see that site nowadays or at least the things that are left
over on the net. In the middle nineties, as the Atari scene conquered the
internet it wasn't only one of the first Atari scene web pages on the net, no,
it was also one of the most interesting ones, with a huge links area, chatroom,
guestbook, downloads and so on, nice styled and always worth to be surfed on...
It was cool designed with a lot of AGENT T's grafix and I remember the times as
we stumbled into the computer rooms of the university of Leipzig to take a look
at it or sitting in internet cafe's and searching through the site...
Nowadays the site is given up completely, only a shadow of itself and it seems
that the only reason to see it still online is the fact that some files weren't
deleted from the servers...
Styling... nothing to tell about... crap
Features.. nothing as well, just some files that survived a server clean up
Atari?.... since there are no contents it isn't about Atari as well
Surf on... no, make a bow around it, just wasted time and money
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AVENA
url ........................ http://www.avena.com
maintained ................. Fried of Avena
status of the band ......... Inactive/dead on Atari! Last official release 1998
last update of the site .... 1.3.o2
AVENA... another big name in the Atari demo history, mainly because of their
rocking Falcon demos, esp. the ones created by their english coder TAT in the
late nineties.. But with TAT leaving the scene and TOMMY commiting suicide the
band lost his last active members and went inactive since this time...
But names like "Enraged", "Weltschmerz" and over all "Sonolumineszenz" will ever
stay in the minds of Atari Falcon demo lovers... after turning inactive the band
changed to to collecting pool of inactive german Atari sceners but that didn't
helped...
The first AVENA site was always worth to be surfed on, featuring a great forum,
downloads from demos and musix, java adventures and more... a trailer that
announced the rebuilding of the site made me hungry for more...
But today the AVENA site isn't worth anything anymore... the design is a matter
of taste, but the completely lack of contents, except a bunch of extremely dull
Flash comics, drags the site into the deepest hole...
Styling... surely a matter of taste... dark and depressing...
Features.. no forum/downloads/informations/links, just dull flashmovies
Atari?.... only mentioned somewhere in the description what Avena is/was
Surf on... for Atarians there is no use to go there, if you like primitive flash
movies then check it out...
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CHECKPOINT
url ........................ http://www.8ung.at/checkpoint/
maintained ................. Defjam of Checkpoint
status of the band ......... sleeping atm, last Atari release summer 2k1
last update of the site .... 8.7.o2
CHECKPOINT should be a wellknown band, gathering a few very talented chaps like
DEFJAM as magnificent coder, MODMATE as pixel magician and 5o5 as god of musix,
but unfortunately DEFJAM is the only coder and dives in PalmOS and GBA waters
nowadays while MODMATE stopped pixels long time ago.. Rumours about their latest
demo called "Mono Style/Posh/whatever" are around since 2 years now and I doubt
that we will see some single bit of it. But after all with their stunning "Sure
Trip" demo they have set a technical monument on the ST that can be called a
mile stone of the resurrected ST scene...
The CHECKPOINT site offers a mediocre design (Who the hell did the ugly logo?),
a few site news, a very mixed link page and the complete downloads of the band.
The former guestbook is out of order atm and that's it already...
Styling... quite mediocre, no milestone at all (I miss more mOdmate style ;)
Features.. site oriented news, a few informations, all downloads, links
Atari?.... very Atari related, but now also GBA/PalmOS stuff is flooding in :/
Surf on... if you're missing something from the CP releases, it is a must...
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CREAM
url ........................ http://www.creamhq.de/
maintained ................. Tao and Abyss of Cream
status of the band ......... sleeping atm, latest official release in 2k
last update of the site .... 16.o4.o1
Is there anything to add to the name CREAM? Build up from the ruins of the ACF
DESIGN TEAM, CREAM was growing up to one of the biggest names in the late
nineties but unfortunately the group was falling asleep over their latest demo
called "Heftig" that was thought to be released in 1999... only real lifesign
of the band is TAO, supporting several projects with musix and acting as coder
for the YMROCKERS... but there are some signs on the horizon...
The site is without any doubt one of the most interesting ones german Atari
sceners ever set into the net. It offers a very clean design without too much
play around, stories about the history of CREAM, a huge download area with
screenshots and info for every production, a group diary where you can find the
latest developments in the group dynamic, a guestbook, a few links, musix to be
replayed with ST sound plugin, ofcourse composed by TAO as well as a subpage
dedicated to their JAM player, a multi format music player for Atari systems and
last but not least, TAO isn't only the coder for YM ROCKERs but also maintaining
the web site of this (atm german musicians dominated) chip music project.
Styling... very clean, easy to navigate through, could stand as example
Features.. history, diary, downloads, links, guestbook, all you need to get
Atari?.... completely atari oriented
Surf on... the update shows that there isn't much going on... but always to
check the diary :)
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ESCAPE
url ........................ http://www.inf.tu-dresden.de/~nf2/
maintained ................. No of Escape
status of the band ......... active
last update of the site .... somewhen in 2oo1
Are there any words to loose about ESCAPE? Since their "Hmmm" demo I believe
not, since ESCAPE didn't only made their complete breakthrough in the Falcon
demo scene with this release, no, they're playing in the first row since this
time and I have to say that NO's team has a promising future, at least I think
so since with the organizing of the EIL parties they have set a monument for
themselves in doing the mostwanted Atari related demo parties of the last years
and maybe the best Atari parties since long long times at all.
Their page is a bit strange designed, in parts quite colourful but the buttons
to navigate through the site are quite small. The site features informations
about the group, group news and updates, sub pages for their special projects
"Whip" (Atari Falcon virtual light machine) and "Escape Paint", informations
about future projects, but no links page but therefore a big download area.
Here you have to use the ftp instead of the links of the page since those are
linked to nothing anymore since the server was reorganised.
Styling... a bit strange and a matter of taste
Features.. a lot of infos about projects, group downloads
Atari? ... completely atari oriented
Surf on... from time to time it could be usefull, maybe to discover new plug ins
for "Whip" and "Escape Paint"?
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FOUNDATION TWO
url ........................ http://home.rhein-zeitung.de/~foundationtwo/
maintained ................. Mad Butscher of Foundation Two
status of the band ......... active, but mainly 8bit nowadays
last update of the site .... somewhen in 2ooo
FOUNDATION TWO isn't a big name on the ST/Falcon, better known is maybe their
old semi professional software project SOLUTION SOFTWARE... furthermore F2 never
stepped into demo coding, therefore more in games development but their latest
releases for the ST and Falcon lay back in 1997 but there seem to be movements
to come back to the Falcon sector nowadays since MAD BUTSCHER is working on some
stuff again...
Another thing that FOUNDATION TWO stays for is to being a melting pot of gamers
on all Atari systems and to co-organise the UNCONVENTIONAL PARTIES together with
ABBUC members, that are, unfortunately, not very attracting to ST/Falcon sceners
so far, but I hope those parties will get more attention next year and so on.
The page itself wasn't updated since long and seem to be lost for itself since
the only updates are going on at the Unconventional pages nowadays. So all stuff
on here is very outdated. It features downloads of their releases (but only
untill 1999, it doesn't matter what system) as well as the Uncon subpages, that
are more often updated and redisgned.
The design of the page is quite mediocre and far from being state of the art or
something...
Styling... only mediocre, matter of taste
Features.. a few downloads, very 8bit oriented, Uncon subpages
Atari?.... yeps, but mainly 8bit!
Surf on... better try the Uncon subpages only... or if you're missing some of
the SOLUTION SOFTWARE titles.
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INTER
url ........................ http://www.uni-karlsruhe.de/~un8n/
maintained ................. LoST of Inter/Avena
status of the band ......... inactive/dead on atari - last official release 1996
last update of the site .... 12.o7.96
With INTER another dinosaur has still his page online. INTER was growing up to a
big name on the Falcon scene after the guys of TFC (esp. LoST) joined them in
1994, before this time the band was only a shadow.
INTER raised for short time over the following 2 years with a wave of in parts
very impressive productions and contributions to other projects popped up and
then the crew started to stumble, several members went inactive, left the Atari
scene or joined other bands, such as AVENA (without coming back to activity).
It is still some kind of strange to see that many members of the german Falcon
scene of the early nineties thought to have found something cool with OS2 as so
many of them changed onto this system but were falling into meaninglessness then
on this system as it never was a big thing...
The page by LoST represents this last state of the band before it vanished from
the screen. The page itself offers a lot of informations even if a few parts are
set up with a big "under construction" logo but I'm sure we will never see the
final results there...
The filled parts delivering a lot of infos, like softography (even of LoST's pre
INTER times), compo results and stuff, unfortunately no downloads, sneak
previews onto their way on PC/OS2 and a completely outdated linklist...
The design of the page is quite clear but the server it stays on seems to be
damn slow and often you need to try to connect again and again since often the
message that the server is out of order appears on the screen.
Styling... nice and clear, quite dark
Features.. a bigger bunch of informations, a big but outdated linklist, no dl's!
Atari?.... big parts are Atari related
Surf on... only if you need some infos about INTER and if you want to read about
demos and games that were released by them but vanished from the
screen completely (I wonder where their early Falcon demos/screens
are, I never saw one in the public (only on the DCC'93 on the compo
screen...)) So if someone got hold of them, please get in touch!
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NEW POWER GENERATION
url ......................... http://www.npg.net
maintained .................. Carnera of NPG maybe?
status of the band .......... inactive/dead, last Atari release 1994 (!)
last updated of the site .... unknown
NEW POWER GENERATION, a name that is lost in the endless space, after a bunch
of Demo Compact disx in the beginning nineties on the ST and a few very cool
ST demos with in parts high technical standard and through CARNERA's special
pixels with a quite unique style, they belonged to the first row of Falcon demo
makers, releasing two big Falcon demos, that both didn't matched it to break
LAZER's "1st place domain"... There were a few more little demos and screens
around, but the most interesting thing apart from demos was their huge project
on the gaming area, "Boom", later also known as "Incubator", unfortunately this
project died over the years it was in development, I think back in 1996 or so it
was dropped completely. Too bad. 1996 was also the last time we saw their coder,
JARON, doing something on his Falcon but in fact this stuff was never released..
The NPG site was quite long offline and suddenly appeared again some times ago.
The site got again a bit of this special CARNERA touch with a nice animated java
applet as menue. Therefore the things the site offers are a bit sparse. The info
on the site is quite incomplete and offers only parts of the group history and
infos about a part of the members. Furthermore there is a little linklist, a few
downloads and a bunch of screenshots for "Incubator", but in a version that was
not officially released, damn...
And that's it already. There are special members pages by CYMRIC and CARNERA,
but those aren't Atari oriented.
Styling ... not bad and quite "designish" with animated java applets
Features .. a few incomplete infos, incomplete download area, pictures, links
Atari? .... only Atari related contents
Surf on ... it isn't a must since it doesn't enlights some dark corners of NPG
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NEW TREND
url ........................ http://puric.inka.de/sites/pataki/
maintained ................. Lig Luri of New Trend
status of the band ......... inactive/dead - last official release on Atari 1994
last update of the site .... dunno, but set online 2oo1 or 2oo2 again
I think I must not tell you much about NEW TREND anymore since I was able to
enlight a lot about this old band back in the past issue with my story about
"Where Are They Now". So I will make it short... NEW TREND itself was founded on
the ruins of THE SILVERBULLET FORCE back in 1991/1992, on ST they never matched
it to make a real breakthrough and was more or less in the headlines because of
its little quarrels with other bands. As LIG LURI joined them in 1993 (he was
former known as Mr Pee of TCM) the band got its boost on the Falcon and belongs
to the first Falcon demo groups along with LAZER, NPG and AURA at all.
Unfortunately this didn't went long and already 1994 the light was switched off,
as LIG LURY jumped onto the OS2 train to neverland...
Btw, the NEW TREND page was one of the first german Atari scene pages along with
the ACF page but since the band went away from the Atari it was set offline very
early too... Now LIG LURY brought it back because of nostalgia, with completely
new design.
But the page offers not much, the informations are incomplete as well as the
downloads and those things starting mainly with the time as LIG LURI joined. So
you can just leech their two Falcon demos and see screenshots of their second
one. Interesting are just two included online games, one is a mine sweeper clone
and one a conversion of a game done by LoST of INTER many years back on ST, just
called "Quencher"... The greetings on the site are running as java applet and
showing a vector ball scroller.
Styling ... quite own design, very clear and easy to navigate
Features .. incomplete infos and downloads, pictures, online games
Atari? .... only Atari related contents
Surf on ... there doesn't happen much here, only for playing the games...
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PARANOIA
url ........................ http://www.uni-mainz.de/~heuno000/
maintained ................. The Paranoid of Paranoia
status of the band ......... active
last update of the site .... 11.1o.o2
PARANOIA, yes, there was something, but please don't mix it up. There was a band
called PARANOIA on the ST in the early nineties, but this hadn't something to do
with the todays PARANOIA group since this one's history doesn't goes back so far
as I know. PARANOIA really started with the end of SOLUTION SOFTWARE, in former
times PARANOID was the pixel man for the games by MAD BUTSCHER. It's first own
steps made PARANOIA with a bunch of games releases and a few small intros and
since 2ooo they're trying to make steps into the Falcon demo scene and can be
called to be a promising new comer there. Unfortunately there are movements in
the band to be open for more systems, esp. 8bit Commodore machines and x86 stuff
and so the flow of Atari releases suffers a bit under this movements.
There are still rumours about some new Atari stuff, such as a Commodore C16/+4
emulation for Atari machines as well as new demo stuff, but except the first one
nothing is verified.
The page itself is stuck into some heavy redesign atm, changing into hard black-
white painting and surely is a matter of taste, the only part that still is hold
in old style is the projects/releases page, offering downloads of all products
and infos about forthcoming releases.
Apart from this the site offers infos about the single members, the forthcoming
PARACON 4 party, Atari hardware guides, a gallery of PARANOID's pixels, s little
page with chip musix done by their member LUEBKE as well as a huge greetings
list. The former quite outdated links list was removed completely.
Styling ... I don't like that hard black/white design, sorry
Features .. quite a lot, infos, downloads with screenshots, musix, pictures...
Atari? .... mostly Atari oriented, but the group will invade other systems
Surf On ... If you miss some of their productions, for sure, unfortunately the
news aren't that pumping since last year anymore.
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RISK
url ........................ http://www.risk2k.risky.de/
............................ http://www.risk1998.risky.de/main.htm
maintained ................. Danny O of Risk
status of the band ......... inactive/dead on Atari - last release 1993?
last update of the site .... dunno, the first one in march 2oo2
RISK... arf... This band never stepped into the big light of the scene, it was
more known because of their magnificent musician RIPGUY and artist MC FLY but
their releases on ST mainly in the early nineties, were only mediocre. In fact
they released some stuff under another group name too, the INVALIDS. On Falcon
their paths are even smaller... As far as I know the name RISK was on Falcon
dragged into the light through DANNY O, MC FLY and RIPGUY with the compo entries
that mostly reached upper places. As so many others they're moved to PC lateron,
but I was quite happy as I saw DANNY O's attempts to create a page.
In fact, there was already a RISK page set online some time ago, but it was
taken out of the net, now there are two pages around. An old one (the second
url) and a new one, but this one seems to be not finished or something, maybe my
browser has problems dunno, but except the very cool intro with a fractal
landscape and a information page, nothing more is to come, anyway, I wrote about
it since the intro is worth watching.
The older page is quite colourfull and offers a wide range of informations, two
old ST demos to download, member infos, links and a big bunch of musix by RIPGUY
TOMMY and DANNY O to download. Unfortunately the gallery showing pictures by
DANNY O and MC FLY is abandoned.
And, last but not least, the following sentence is quite dull "We are now coding
... on PC's as it seems that this will be the only computers that survive!!" Ba!
Again it is quite dull to see some guys that installed some name back in their
history moving into the wrong direction and, as the most others, loosing any way
of importance, also RISK never matched it to step back into the light as band...
I think this is some kind of compensating justice...
Styling ... Ok, quite colourfull, intro of the first page is nice
Features .. a few infos, demo and musix downloads, links, not much to add
Atari? .... Main parts yes, but read the sentence above...
Surf On ... The intro is worth watching, the rest only if you're bored and don't
know what to do...
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THE CHAOS ENGINE
url ........................ http://thechaosengine.virtualave.net/
maintained ................. The Byte of TCE
status of the band ......... inactive/dead - last official release 1995
last update of the site .... 3o.8.2oo1
THE CHAOS ENGINE wasn't very successfull on the scene, releasing just a bunch of
intros and music compiles on the Falcon and later on some lame shareware cracks
I wont count as true releases here. They have got their best times as the
members of BLUE SOFTWARE, another 3rd range band joined their lines that brought
one great guy into the band, bITmASTER, a genious dsp coder, but as he left for
PSX development the short better time of the band was over again... Nowadays or
better untill last year, the former BSW member THE BYTE appeared again and again
working on a big CD compilation set but since the page wasn't updated anymore
and TB seems to be angry about a short sentence I wrote about the page in UCM 21
I think he went inactive too in the end.
The site itself appeared very late, as the band was dead already, now reanimated
for some huge CD collections projects, featuring rare demo and game collections,
those are maintained by THE BYTE, too. The site doesn't blows you away with its
design (that was never a hightlite of TCE or BLUE SOFTWARE releases, except
their outstanding "Burning Water" intro from the Fried Bits 3) but therefore it
features a big download area, informations about the CD collections projects, a
ripped links list (from the .tSCc. page) and a few infos and news about the
site, where THE BYTE claims that my short info in UCM 21 was the reason for him
to quit as I didn't reported the things better... I don't care about that fact
since I mentioned only that the downloads were all bugged and since the site is
written in german only (and still is) it isn't of big use for the foreign Atari
scene... anyway, you should surf on if you're missing some TCE releases and want
to dig out some unreleased antics... so far the BSW area isn't up and running,
but this isn't a real drawback since the BSW compiles always were 3rd or 4th
range...
Styling... a bit oldschoolish, black backgrounds, colourfull grafix...
Features.. some informations (in german), download area with some antics, links
Atari?.... only atari related contents
Surf on... if you're missing some TCE productions or want to help with the CD
project and if you aren't in fear of german writings :)
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THE NAUGHTY BYTES
url ........................ http://www.tnb-design.de/
maintained ................. Flash of .tnb.
status of the band ......... dead - last official release on Atari 1997
last update of the site .... 15.1o.o2
Last but not least, the homepage of my former band, .tnb. that was set online
by FLASH who was the last joining member and who joined an already dying band.
.tnb. was founded 1o years ago and it's main reputation is growing out of the
fact to be the root of the UNDERCOVER MAGAZINE, firstly started as german crap
talk magazine. Short tries to start a demo carreer on ST died with the upcoming
Falcon and all members changed to this machine... .tnb. releases always had a
strange kind of humour but the early split of the band in 1995 was the beginning
of the end while loosing a third of its members. 1996 and 1997 some nice demos
were done too but loosing more members really and more members staying inactive
showed up the end of the band. Last coder DRIZZT appeared last time 1999, helped
MIKE of STAX to release his last ST demo, released an old demo from 1994 for the
fake compo at EIL'99 and since this time the band disappeared. FLASH seems to be
the only active survivor, supporting other groups with his pixels now.
The page itself is damn cool styled, offering FLASH's grafix and a lot of
ripped stuff too, but build together in a very nice way. Apart from this the
page suffers under FLASH's only works, so the infos about the band and their
members are incomplete, the download area is saved with a password (Arf!). So
there isn't much to discover here, funny are the old news... .tnb. claimed to
work on a demo called "EKO System 2" for example and tried to give proove with
ripped and changed screenshots from TBL PC demos, hehehe. Unfortunately those
screenshots were removed. The download area offers a lot of party pictures from
different events but as said, you need a password there... And I haven't one :(
Styling ... quite cool, even with ripped grafix...
Features .. not much too talk about, incomplete infos, disabled downloads...
Atari? .... Atari related, but... nothing interesting to read or get
Surf On ... only if you want to see a nice designed page...
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THE SIRIUS CYBERNETICS CORPORATION
Naaaah! I wont make too much propaganda here! I and I'm sure you as well know
about the huge features of our site... just check http://tscc.atari.org
Links, downloads, UCM online, Galleries, FTP servers, group history, members sub
pages (Lotek Style, Linux and Windows Pages) and much much more... Just try it
out!
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XTROLL
url ........................ http://xtroll.ubuxe.de
maintained ................. Cyclone of XTroll
status of the band ......... dead since 1o years now
last update of the site .... dunno
XTROLL? Who the fuck is or was XTROLL? I wondered by myself as I first stumbled
over this band and their site on the net. In fact even if I was a hard demo
collector I can't remember one of their demos. XTROLL itself claimes that they
didn't released their demos because they don't wanted that someone ripped their
code... huuh. And so they lived from the late eighties untill the beginning
nineties, releasing a bunch of hardly mediocre demos and... LETHAL XCESS, or at
least their member CYCLONE, who was responsible for the grafix and stuff...
Today there aren't actions as XTROLL anymore, just CYCLONE is around to create
some LETHAL XCESS 2oo2 thing but atm, I doubt that we will see it this year...
The page is very clean designed, showing a lot of screenshots, bringing a lot of
informations about the band and their "non" releases, offering demos for to
download and links to check out. The page isn't a blaster at all but if you have
not visited it so far, just do it... demo collectors should find the one or
other rare software antics there as well.
Styling ... Clean, easy to navigate and understand, but no burner
Features .. downloads, a bunch of informations about past and present
Atari? .... completely Atari related
Surf On ... if you miss something of the XTROLL releases...
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And more? Unfortunately not... In the time I was working on this article, a lot
of pages disappeared or changed their contents that much that there isn't a need
to list them here anymore... such as the sites by Absence, Aura or Psychonomix,
to name just a few.
Sure, this article ended up in another way I wanted, so I dropped the ratings
and tried to shrink down the informations to a better digestible limit, after
all I'm a bit happy that a few pages disappeared since alone this "short" survey
is breaking a lot of space limits as we reached the 3o KB already...
Ok, peeps, if I have forgotten a page please contact me... even if I wont make
an update of this article, but I would include it in the online news area.
moondog@atari.org
_.tSCc.__________________________________________________________moondog_1o/2k2_
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