You never get a second chance to make a first impression.
Quote off an extremely stupid commercial
(Head and Shoulders)
THE SOLUTION TO ALL ST NEWS HIDDEN ARTICLES
by Richard Karsmakers
Ever since ST NEWS Volume 4 Issue 2, Stefan and myself have been
unable to suppress an urge to include some really strange
articles in ST NEWS. Most of the time, these articles included
strange song texts, declarations of love, ultimate drivel and
even worse stuff, so we decided to hide them, i.e. to make them
invisible or unselectable from the standard menu bar.
This principle, I suppose, was considered to be very challenging
by the readers - also because the Lost Boys' disk magazine
"Maggie" mimicked us by using them as well.
As it is generally of no use for them never to be discovered,
Stefan and myself thought that it was about time to reveal the
ways through which they can be accessed (as far as we were able
to remember them, that is).
We are confident that the stuff you will thus be able to read
will cause quite a bit of shock, laughter, horror and happiness.
ST NEWS Volume 4 Issue 2
This issue contained the very first hidden article ever produced
by a disk magazine. As it was pioneer work, we hand't yet found
out a thing like a 'hidden article quest', so really all you had
to do was press ALT+M in the main menu mode (the 'M' of
Metallica).
It was filled with lyrics to "Fade to Black" and "Master of
Puppets" (both of Metallica), greetings to a list of all the
beautiful females we had ever seen during our lives (and had been
able to remember), and some bragging about our page view mode
being very fast and capable of doing text styles.
ST NEWS Volume 4 Issue 3
The hidden article in this issue was already a lot more cleverly
hidden. As a matter of fact, it was so cleverly hidden that it's
only possible on color systems, preferably with TOS 1.0 in them.
The trick is that you had to 'adjust colours' to $444 and $333
(the number of the issue). Once having clicked on "OK", the
hidden article would be loaded.
Predictably, there were some song lyrics in it again:
Metallica's "One", to be more precise. It also contained a rather
risque joke about a stupid Belgian police officer and some people
f.cking.
ST NEWS Volume 4 Issue 4
The issue that was filled with what had happened on the LateST
NEWS Quest in England, the 25th issue in all.
This was the first hidden article quest, i.e. you kinda 'logged
in' something where you had to get through to get to the article.
You could only enter single words, or two words together (without
a space between them). We included about fifty words that
provoked some kind of reaction by the parser; mostly names of
bands and girls, and of course our own names and those of co-
authors. But the critical word was "HIDDENARTICLE".
Very simple. You just had to make sure there wasn't a space in
between them.
The hidden article contained a lot of rambling by yours truly
about Miranda (Stefan complained a bit about me about her as
well), and the lyrics to Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls".
But, most interestingly, the article also contained the hidden
statistics to the LateST NEWS Quest - i.e. the number of burps
and farts we produced. Also, we published a top 5 of the most
gorgeous females met during the Quest.
ST NEWS Volume 5 Issue 1
The hidden article quest to this was already a lot more
difficult, and you almost had to be a personal friend of ours (or
a faithful and complete reader of ST NEWS)!
First, you were asked what your age was. Of course, your real
age didn't count here - only if you happened to be 42.
Then (and this was really devious) you had to type in the magic
word of the previous hidden article quest: "HIDDENARTICLE".
Next came a difficult one. You had to add our ages in February
1990 together (22+22=44), multiply that by the type of my car
(Peugeot 205, i.e. 205) and then divide the whole lot by the
total number of ST NEWS issue that occurred in Volume 3 (that
were 7). Then you had to take the lowest integer and add the type
of Stefan's car (an Alpha 33, so 33).
The answer was 1321.
But that wasn't yet the end. You had two more questions to go
through.
The question to the question how Cronos' foster mum calls him
could be read in the "Savage" review: "Bunny". The third song on
the Metallica "One" CD single had to be mentioned for the last
question: "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)".
That was it.
Your payment for your trouble consisted part I of quite a huge
real time article of a hypothetical visit of the Nutty Norwegians
to Holland, preluded by the song lyrics of Mucky Pup's "Fuck",
and ended by a nice remark of a band called "Blasphemer".
ST NEWS Final Compendium
There are three hidden article in this issue. The third one is
hidden behind a fairly massive 'Hidden Article Quest' - larger
than any before.
Hidden article #1: Not to be found.
When looking through source material of the old ST NEWS Final
Compendium, we were unable to find even a hint at this hidden
article. It doesn't seem to exist at all. Ain't that strange? The
second one is called 'second' and the third one the 'last', but
there ain't no first?!
Hidden article #2: Slightly funny.
Open the 'Help Screen' and you will notice a pixel in the bottom
right corner of the innermost rectangle. Click on it.
This article does not contain a lot of interesting stuff.
Basically, Stefan and myself wrote down some bull shit and added
some Chinese poetry to that.
Hidden article #3: Very insane.
As said before, this is hidden behind a massive quest with
multiple-choice questions. The answers are 2-3-1-2-2-4-1-2-2-3-2-
3-4-2-4-4-3-2-4-2-3-2-2-2-2-4-3-3-1-4-3-2-3-4-3-3-4-2-4-1-4.
This article contains some miscellaneous drivel as well as part
II of the real-time article around the hypothetical visit of the
Nutty Norwegians to Holland.
There's a bit of Carcass song lyrics in it as well.
ST NEWS Volume 5 Issue 2
There are three hidden articles in this issue, which are
moderately interesting (and one of them is very funny even if I
say so myself).
Hidden article #1: Extremely absurd.
There is a sub-menu called "Non computer-related stuff". Once
you have selected that sub-menu, you will find one pixel under
the leftmost bit of the topmost dotted line. Click on that pixel.
This article is quite impressive, and actually consists of a 79
Kb real-time article of a hypothetical visit to Norway
(originally, this was part of a crazy letter we sent to the Nutty
Norwegians prior to our Norway Quest).
Hidden article #2: Highly intoxicated.
When opening the "Help" screen in the ST NEWS main menu, and
pressing 'Undo' to exit it, you will enter the second hidden
article.
During the months that Spaz and Manikin of TLB were working with
me at Thalion, we got drunk regularly. So it happened on one
night (when Stefan and some more folx were there as well) that
Spaz (a.k.a. Dave) got very drunk. He sat down behind a computer
and wrote something down in which he particularly felt quite
unhappy with the world - saying so in blunt words. That's what
this hidden article is all about. It also contains some song
lyrics we received from Tanis of TCB, from a song he wrote called
"Necrobizarre Cannibalism". Gory!
Hidden article #3: Funny.
This is hidden behind the 'Hidden Article Quest' in the
'Options' menu. You get multiple-choice questions here, that you
have to answer correctly. The answers are 2-4-4-1-3-3-2-2.
This article is kind of a sequel to the "Oh Yeah" article in the
ST NEWS Final Compendium, where Stefan and myself tell Cronos
Warchild that he has been cheated. Generally, it's a lot of bull
because we both got very drunk during the later stages of
writing. This article also contains the first ever contribution
by the Spirits of Doom.
ST NEWS Volume 6 Issue 1
The last one in the row - for please don't expect us to reveal
already what the clues to this issue's hidden articles are!
There are three hidden articles in Volume 6 Issue 1 as well,
which are all three accessible through simple menu entries in the
pull-down menu. As you will have seen, however, they are light,
i.e. non-selectable.
Each entry will be selectable after you've done something
specifically.
Hidden article #1: Utter bollocks.
Was written by Stefan and me when we were very drunk (or at
least I was). It contains a lot of bullshit, not much more. It is
accessible by selecting the "ST NEWS Colofon" article 42 times in
a row, where you'll each time have to scroll to the bottom of it.
Hidden article #2: Quite normal, actually.
Written by TS of the Spirits of Doom, this is a little story
about a creature called Fluffy. There's nothing wrong or obscene
with this article, and it was hidden because we thought it didn't
really fit in the Convention set-up of that issue.
It is selectable after pressing ALT+M in the menu screen.
Hidden article #3: Downright disgusting. Undescribably much so.
This is definitely the worst article we ever published, and the
reason why it is hidden is obvious once you've read it. It
involves some very unusual things you can do with kids, animals,
dung, whips, babies, grandmothers and stuff like that. The author
is known by us, but we found it better not to mention his name
because he is a very popular person in the ST world that would
probably not benefit from this. All you need to know is that it
wasn't Stefan or me.
Because of the vulgarity of this article we are not going to
reveal how to get to it. We actually regret ever having published
it, and reading it would cause you all to get a very different
(i.e. utterly bad) opinion about us, and about ST NEWS.
So find it out by yourself!
Please be warned: It is terrible, and the least it will do is
put you off your dinner for the next couple of days.
ST NEWS Volume 6 Issue 2
Yeah, I bet you would really like to know how to get to this
issue's hidden articles!
Well, I am afraid I am not going to reveal that to you. All I
can say is what they are about. You have to find out by yourself
how to get to them.
Hidden article #1: Slightly sentimental.
Contains, among some deep thinking, the song lyrics to a song
called "Solitude" by Black Sabbath (and some more songs).
Hidden article #2: Very weird in a strange way.
Never has Stefan gone this deep. Featuring in a Monty Python-
like piece of long prose, he talks about religion, guitars, Cola
and oak trees. All, of course, faithfully captured by yours
truly.
We were not on Plantiac when we did this, because the shop
around the corner didn't stock any. We were on De Kuyper Vieux.
Hidden article #3: A look into the future.
This article was written by The Nutty Snake (i.e. Alex of QX).
It covers a hypothetical future of ST NEWS, and was so much
licking our heels that we considered it arrogant not to hide it.
So we hid it.
Hidden article #4: A SOD compilation.
Something very weird we got from some superficial acquaintances.
Hidden article #5: Gore letter plus more.
The reply to the third hidden article of the previous issue,
which tells more than enough about what it is all about. It is
just as filthy, and it therefore hidden much in the same way as
the filthy one of the previous issue...
The Official ST NEWS International Christmas Coding Convention
Vid'
Yes. There's even a hidden bit on the ST NEWS International
Christmas Coding Convention bit (see the "Merchandise" article,
elsewhere in this issue of ST NEWS). This is what you have to do:
You have to stand on your hands, yell "EVERYBODY IS A MOTHER
F.CKER" with the windows open, and wait for about 2 minutes after
the supposed end of the vid' without pressing STOP.
The hidden vid' bit contains various fascinating scenes, that's
all I am prepared to say.
Disclaimer
The text of the articles is identical to the originals like they appeared
in old ST NEWS issues. Please take into consideration that the author(s)
was (were) a lot younger and less responsible back then. So bad jokes,
bad English, youthful arrogance, insults, bravura, over-crediting and
tastelessness should be taken with at least a grain of salt. Any contact
and/or payment information, as well as deadlines/release dates of any
kind should be regarded as outdated. Due to the fact that these pages are
not actually contained in an Atari executable here, references to scroll
texts, featured demo screens and hidden articles may also be irrelevant.