Editorial - The Undead Issue

EDITORIAL

PROLOGUE - THE FIRST 'UNDEAD' ISSUE OF ST NEWS
*** ST NEWS VOLUME 5 ISSUE 2 ***
by Richard Karsmakers

A new era has begun in the life and times of ST NEWS, the Dutch
international disk magazine. And, after four years of ST NEWS, we
start this era with the first of a (hopefully) long row of ST
NEWS 'undead' issues.
With new aims. A new layout. A partly recoded main program. And
even more texts and stories of the more or less witty kind.
It is easy to imagine that most of you will now have trouble
suppressing some questions, so I will hereby answer those that I
think will be most likely to occur.

Why did you 'stop' with ST NEWS in the first place, only to go
on later as if nothing has happened?
The original ST NEWS issues were meant for a particularly broad
audience. An audience that did not only have interest in games,
but that also wanted to be up to date with what was happening in
other fields of ST computer use.
As we went further with the magazine, we quickly noticed that
most positive feedback came from people that were gamers, and
that generally just liked our style of reading and our (slightly
absurdish) humour. Especially the introductory novellas, the
'sideline' stories, the real time articles and the hackers
tips'n'tricks rated very high.
We were happy. For that was what WE wanted to do most, too.
But, still, we had certain obligations. Like writing reviews of
BAD games, for example. And the sending of ST NEWS to all our
distributors and to all software houses that had sent us review
software.
These obligations were, naturally, very logical. But, still, we
didn't like them. And we also wanted to emphasise on writing
stuff that was, as some may call it, 'uncommercial'. Stuff that
the average ST user might not altogether like that much.
So we wanted to quit - so that we could reincarnate in a much
more adult, and much more dynamic concept. With more crappy
stories and more hacker's tips. With more emphasis on fun instead
of on education and all those less interesting things (no
offence, Mr. Jansen!!).
A very important factor in keeping ST NEWS going the old way was
also TIME. Of which we had none (well, not enough, actually).
So now we can publish an issue every time we have collected
enough miscellaneous shit to fill a disk with, and have no
obligations whatsoever. And the new, 'undead' ST NEWS issues will
be much harder to get, too. They will have to be ordered by the
new list of foreign distributors - that only consists of people
that reacted hyper-enthusiastic to the old issues.
We realise that the 'undead' issues will be harder to get, and
that less people will read 'em. But those who still read 'em will
be true fans.
The ST NEWS 'undead' issues will be cult issues. Only to be read
by those who are into stuff like this.
Why did you go on with it?
We built ST NEWS. We made it an success. We liked writing for
it. And, most of all, we loved it - and we loved the enthusiastic
readers (Nutty Norwegians and Extravagant English most of all).
ST NEWS was like some kind of hard drug. You can't live with it,
but you can't live without it, either. And we loved the crazy
letters we received and wrote due to the mag.
Also, it turned out that we wielded great power (Nutty Norwegian
quote). This generally means that lotsa ST users have learned to
appreciate Heavy Metal (Metallica most of all), and that Plantiac
Vieux is now a commonly found drink on Coding Conferences and
Copy Parties throughout Europe.
Why give all this up?

So this is it. The reincarnation of ST NEWS in the form of the
first 'undead' issue.
And what can you expect in these 'undead' publications?
First of all, you can expect more incredible music, more
incredible tips'n'tricks, more zany stories, some games reviews
(indeed!), some news, and more real-time articles. In general,
you can expect to read everything - including some stuff that
doesn't necessarily has anything to do with computers.
We hope you'll like it.
It will be just like the ol' days. Only weirder.

Do you know that I'm actually beginning to feel being pretty
inspired already for writing loadsa stuff?
It feels great. Great, for the first time since the autumn of
1988.