Hey there Wocki,

I didn't realise that my old website, tagew.co.uk, was archived in the Internet Wayback Machine - nice to see that it's still on the net in some form, although I'd rather forget about some of my dodgy HTML from the time! (mind you, I still have all the source files knocking about somewhere, including various site re-designs that I never got around to uploading!)

Anyway, I've got a few bits 'n' pieces knocking about that you'd probably be interested in. I have an ex-commercial game , for example, called Kaptain Konflikt by Calderglen Computers that I got permission to be included on Acorn Arcade but they've not posted it up as far as I know (it's not brilliant, but still it's another bit of Acorn gaming history... :)

Oh yeah, if you know anything about faulty A3010 disk drives, where to get a replacement case for said machine, or even if you want a hand with any site design or whatever, I'd love to know and hear from you... :D

Regards,
Andy

Does that mean tagew might finally come through a revival and reappear on the net?

I saw today that dhost.info (an ad free provider who offer 100mb space and 300gb transfer limit) reopened its signups at last - maybe it's a sign! an omen ! a coincidence.......

Hey Andy,

nice to here from you. I was surprised too that even my site is archived on the Wayback Machine.
If there are any sources I didn't published on my site (only the legal one ) you can send me some link and I will publish it in some way (it can take some time but it will happen).

So I never heard about Kaptain Konflikt (sounds like some Linux stuff ) but I'm interested in it too. This would be antoher piece of Acorn gaming history for somebody. Maybe more games become free in the future, so I can complete my public collection.

I wonder why there are so many commercial games for Acorn computers after all the years. Are there really so many games sold today? Or are they just too proud to make the games free?

About faulty A3010 drives I only know one thing: I got the same problem with my A3010 and never found a possibility to replace the drive, so I bought me a used A3010 at EBay.

So maybe we stay in contact. It's always nice to here from other Acorn users and (ex?) Acorn site admins.

Best regards

Wocki

Heh, thanks for your advice regarding the A3010 floppy drive - it also has a heavily-battered case with a security mark on it... definitly not one of my better eBay purchaces at least! Ah well, that one's currently hibernating under my bed whilst I play with another A3010 I got from eBay, this time in really good condition... AND cheaper than the broken one! Who knows? I might even fix up the other one, if not I'll still find a use for it!

What I learned from that: if you're looking at eBay for one of the older machines, have a VERY good look at the supplied photo and ask the seller plenty of questions before making that bid! :)

Anyway, I'll email you Wocki in a bit about Kaptain Konflikt and other bits 'n' pieces you might want to add to the site.

Regarding the other commercial software (4th Dimension, Krysalis, etc) - as I understand it, the ownership of the games seems to be with APDL and another company that I've currently forgotten - they still sell the games, albeit in bulk, on CDs and updated to run on the latest Risc OS machines. I read somewhere not so long ago that the Risc OS userbase amounts to about 5000 people worldwide - with it being such a niche platform, you can understand why they'd want to sell whatever they could, however old...

It's highly unlikely that tagew will come back, considering that most of the games that were on there are still being sold - I'm just a broke student after all and couldn't afford the inevitable legal fees ;)

I might make a simple database of the Acorn games that I know and love someday, with screenshots etc... if I ever get time!

I'd rather do something like test games with Arculator, to be honest - in fact, now I've got a working A3010, I can remove all that horrible copy protection with my games and get testing now... :D

Hey Andy,

I'm waiting for your mail. Sounds interesting.

I wonder that there are so many Acorn users in the world (mostly in Britain?). Here in Germany there should be less than 50 I think. Never heard of most of them (the 5000), they seem to be not interested in an Acorn emulation...unfortunately.

So, now to the real point.
You could make the database, but I think it's more worth testing games with Arculator. I think Tom would agree to that. I'm working with full capacity at my site in my spare free time. So it would be nice if somebody could test different games and write some lines of comment about the game and the emulator and some screenshots. All together I could publish it in a new section at my site. Wouldn't that be great?

Till soon,

Wocki