SnackSurprise - The December Box: Spain

Rather more promptly than expected, the latest SnackSurprise box landed just before Christmas. Due to having rather more traditional fare to consume over the festive period, my good lady and I decided to wait until after the Christmas to sample the delights held within this blue and orange box of delights.

Another good selection of snacks.

As you can see, another decent selection that covers savoury and sweet snacks, as well as the ever present drinks can. Here are the relevant pages from the pamphlet.

The usual pamphlet.

So, in fitting with our usual pattern, we decided on the savoury snacks first.

Meaty Quavers... mmmm.

Boca Bits are crispy salted wheat snacks with a rather delicate meat flavour. As you can see, they look very much like Quavers and, taking away the slightly different texture due to their wheat origin, that's precisely what they are. Very pleasant and with a good crunch, their flavour doesn't sit too long on the palette. A very good start to the box.

I didn't mean to make it look like he has a cheesy goatee...

Pandilla (by Cheetos) are another bag of crisps, this time in the shape of ghosts. These are very crunchy and have an almost mature cheese flavour, certainly in the aftertaste, which lingers a good while. Definitely one for lovers of cheese flavoured crisps, though if you're on the fence about that flavour, maybe these aren't the ones for you. 

They at least look nice...

The first of the sweet snacks now and we have Palmeras. Described as a crunchy puff pastry topped with a sugar glaze, these were the first disappointment in the box. The are certainly soft, almost falling to pieces when we tried to remove them from the packet. They are also crunchy, what with that glaze too, but they also have a greasy texture - you get the buttery feel of the puff pastry, but that is so strong, it becomes greasy. That sugar glaze doesn't go well with the grease either. Neither of us were enamoured with these though to it's credit, I can understand why they might go well with coffee.

These are fun sweets, and tasty too.

Fini Galaxy Mix are a strawberry flavoured mix of very chewy gummy sweets. The initial impression is of intense sourness that soon gives way to a punchy strawberry flavour, a combination that is really quite refreshing. We couldn't manage more than one before giving up, as they really do pucker the cheeks, but they do what they set out to do.

Lovely sour balls of gummy juice...

Pikotas next, and these feel very much like Jawbreakers until you actually try one and crack that firm but thin outer shell where you then get a lovely gummy centre. The cherry flavour is quite strong with just a hint of sourness that is far less over-powering than the Galaxy Mix. Very good little sweets.

Simple and straight forward.

Fini Sparks are tiny, multi-flavoured candy pieces that have a nice, punchy taste, but one that doesn't last too long. This is a good thing, as they are a tad sour (there is a pattern here), but for what they offer, another good sweet.

What are these? Only Smarties have the answer...

Lacasitos = Smarties. 'Nuff said.

Cakey goodness or pink coated turd... You decide...

Pantera Rosa is a cake bar that encases a soft sponge and cream filling in a pink coloured shell. The outer covering is a sweet as it is pink, but get past that and you have a deliciously moist sponge, with the cream centre adding that extra layer of texture to complete a very nice snack. This is definitely one for elevenses with either tea or coffee.

Baggsie the double one!

The Filipinos biscuits were another delight - small round chocolate covered treats with a good snap and plenty of crunch. The balance between the biscuit and chocolate is just right and these are snacks highly recommended to accompany your mid-morning brew of choice.

That texture adds to the pleasure... of the taste, obviously!

Tokke is the penultimate snack and can best be described as a Time Out with extra rice pieces included. These add even more texture to the mild milk chocolate shell and crunchy wafer inside. An intriguing combination and one that felt right, but also a tad off. Still, definitely a nice choccy bar.

A glass of something quite unremarkable.

Finally, we have La Casera, a fizzy drink that is said to be one of the most popular soft drinks in Spain and a great addition to wine or beer. What you actually get is carbonated water with a tiny (and I mean tiny) hint of lemon. It's not an offensive taste, so does better than some drinks we have from previous snack boxes, but that is its problem - there is hardly any taste there. So whilst you could say it's refreshing, it achieves this by tasting of neither nowt nor summat. Having said that, we can certainly see how this drink would turn a glass of wine into a spritzer or a beer into a shandy, if such things float your boat. 

So we once again come to the end of another Snack Surprise box and, for the second month running, a box that has exceeded expectations. With only a couple of items that didn't suit us, this was another good selection. Let us see what the new year brings for the January box.We are certainly looking forward to it.

Amiga Addict - Issue One Review

Amiga Addict is a new monthly magazine aimed at the Amiga market. Now, stop laughing at the back, such a thing still exists and, given a quick check online, keeps more than a few companies in business, as well as quite a few lawyers but that's way out of scope for this post. As a former Amiga user and someone who still has a passing interest in the format, when I saw this magazine mentioned on Twitter, I thought I would give it a go.

What we have then is a 56 page glossy A4 format magazine in full colour. Nominally priced at £4.99, you'll need to factor in P&P which, for the UK consumer, means one issue will set you back £6.49 whilst overseas customers will pay £9.28. There are subscription options available, UK prices for 6 and 12 month subs are £37.99 and £73.99 respectively. Overseas subs are £52.00 and £101.00 for the same periods, whilst a 12 month online only sub will set you back £51.30. 

First impressions are good. A high quality cover which is glossy and sturdy, and a cheeky coverdisk message as well! Inside, similarly high quality paper is used for the pages and it is clear that nothing has been skimped on the physical side of the magazine.

As for the contents, the production team have done a good job here too. The first issue is divided into five sections, as you can see from the screenshot below.

What is good to see is the mix of topics - you have interviews, articles, reviews and productivity pieces, with the ratio about right in my opinion and there is a great balance here. Everything is well written and informative - the efforts of combat piracy on the Amiga especially so given how blatantly rampant it was just from what I remember when I was at school. Every article is of interest too, the interviews well thought out and the reviews fun to read. Even the adverts are interesting, with a good range of advertisers covering hardware, software, merchandise and repair services. Nothing on a par with Silica Systems but those were the days, my friend...

I also applaud the production team on the layout of the magazine. It has been a thing for quite a while now (especially in wargaming publications but they are not the only ones) for magazines to have a lot of white space (doesn't have to be white but a lot of empty space nonetheless). Personally, I hate that. Fortunately here, the layout is really good - well-spaced text and suitable illustrations, but no honking great white spaces that do nothing to add to the content. 

It's great to see a new print magazine for the Amiga, one that the publishers themselves see as complimenting existing magazines. Much like Archive and Drag 'n' Drop magazines for RISC OS, it's comforting to see that the market for publications still exists in hobbyist computing circles and with such high production values.

As first issues go, this is a brilliant start and I shall definitely be subscribing when issue 2 is announced in January. If you're an Amiga fan or just someone interested in the format, I heartily recommend it. You can find out more about the magazine here.

We Love Atari Volumes 1 and 2 - Book Review

More retro videogames and computing shenanigans now with a review of the two volume set "We Love Atari", written by Karl Morris and published by Zafinn Books. These two volumes cover the products, prototypes and the story of Atari from its founding in 1972 to its demise as a hardware vendor in 1996. 

What a lovely pair... of books

Now I'll make an admission here. I have only ever owned one piece of genuine Atari hardware, a Jaguar that I picked up from Game back in 2002/3 when they sold a load of remainder stock of Jag's and Lynx handhelds over the Christmas period. That's not to say I didn't want Atari consoles or computers back in the day, especially the Jaguar when it was first released, and some of the higher end ST's (the TT and Falcon especially). As it was, I was an Amiga kid back then though I did have a couple of friends who had ST's and I thought the Atari's were pretty cool. 

This set of tomes caught my attention after a perusal through the book reviews section of retrovideogamer.co.uk and, after following the publisher on Twitter, thought these were definitely worth a read. As they are self-published and in a niche market, they aren't particularly cheap - the two book set coming in at €105 (about £97.51 at the time of purchase) including postage. There is the option to buy them separately at €60 a piece but let's be honest here, it's a two volume set for a reason. 

A rather nice selection of stickers

Upon receipt, opening the very well prepared packaging revealed a hefty pair of 21.5cm by 21.5cm softback books, a nice collection of Atari themed stickers and a lovely handwritten card from the author. It's a nice touch.

Unexpected and rather nice.

Volume One then, and this starts in 1972 and ends in 1984 when Warner Communications sold Atari's consumer electronics and home computing divisions to Jack Tramiel. This is very much a visually led volume and whilst there is plenty to read, the focus here tends to drift towards the look of the arcade machines, the advertising and early visual history of the games that made Atari the powerhouse it was. Through the 285 pages, you'll see classic titles, concepts that were never released and get a real feel as to how the company saw itself in it's youthful years. You'll also get a hint as to what was to bring the company to its knees in the 1980's.

Another Atari idea that didn't work out

Volume Two picks up after the crash of '83 and the struggles Atari had to remain in business. There is more text in the 291 pages of this volume and those who like the picture heavy first tome may be disappointed but, for me, this is where the core of the Atari story lies. You get the fight to release a 16-bit computer onto the market, the success that followed, the even more outlandish ideas that did not come to pass and the decline into obscurity as Atari lost its way into becoming a one horse show (which they then shot out back). This is an engaging tale and for those who lived through the 16-bit computer era, is an essential one to read. It's not overly in-depth though, but the bibliography at the back of each volume has some highly recommended reading. 

Over both books, the author's easily readable prose does the job it needs to, with personal interjections and thoughts where it is felt necessary. There is also an impish sense of humour on some of the picture captions that raised a smile and a chuckle.

A great little 8-bit computer

When I think of the Atari from my formative years, I remember the 5200 and 7800 consoles being pushed as Nintendo and Sega grew their market share in the UK. I remember the almost endless variations of the 520ST, STM, STFM, STE etc, but in reality, there weren't that many. I remember the Mega ST and TT, two desktop computers that defined what a powerful computer of the period should look like, at least to me. To this day, the TT remains the second best looking desktop I have ever seen (the Amiga 3000 is third and the Acorn RiscPC is first. You are welcome to disagree, but you'll be wrong... :-)) This is despite the "off-centre" design both looking funky and making the OCD side of my brain freak out at the same time. I also remember looking at the Lynx and wishing I could afford one. Same with the Jaguar, even though compared to its rivals, the Jag was much, much cheaper. Then we have the Falcon, the home computer that was unrivaled (even the Amiga 1200 was a poor second) though that price tag did it no favours. Nor did the lack of advertising or support from Atari themselves. This is all before I mention the portable ST's and the prototypes. For those, well, you'll just have to read the books. 

This is how computers should look!

Overall, these are two wonderful volumes on a period of video game and computing history that does not get much love in the more mainstream market. I enjoyed the telling and greatly expanded my knowledge of Atari in its various forms up until 1996, even with the inevitable sadness that comes with knowing that those in control of Atari (and, in the same sense, Commodore) had great products and knew how to run a business to a degree, but they had zero understanding of who their users were and what made their products great.

As you can tell, I really liked these books and I hope that there will be more reprints in the future (my copies were from the 4th reprint) as these books deserve to be on any video game/computing aficionados bookshelf. The author wanted to fill a gap in his own bookshelf with publications about Atari that begged to be picked up and perused at leisure. He has achieved that and more with two indispensable volumes that are well worth the investment. You can find out more about Zafinn books here, as well as on Twitter, where you can see some news about their latest publication, "50 ST games you have to play". That's definitely on the "to buy" list!

SnackSurprise - The November Box: Denmark

Another timely(!) delivery from SnackSurprise, though there was a bit of warning this time. An email was received advising that due to a query over the quality of one of the items to be included, November's box would arrive slightly later than expected. The honesty of the communication was appreciated and it was with some expectation that we opened the box and found that we had treats from Denmark this month.

The usual, informative pamphlet.

Not a bad looking selection.

As is becoming a bit of a tradition, once we had unpacked everything, my good lady and I decided to start with the savoury snacks first.

A good start to the box.

Snack Chips are pretty much ready salted crisps with the addition of light spicing. First impressions though and they fulfill the promise of being crispy. The crunchiness is sublime and reminded us of Walkers Squares crisps from our childhoods, and not the pale imitation of Squares that you can buy now. The Snack Chips also taste lovely, and that mild spicing adds a depth to the flavour that elevates these crisps to another level (and yes, I have been watching too much Masterchef!). A great start to this month's snack box.

Wotsits with 50% more vowels

We followed up with the Ostepops, a crispy corn-based snack that are cheesy in the extreme. Essentially Danish Wotsits, they're a lovely snack and I would say they taste better than Wotsits. Also a nice surprise (after last month's Patos Rolls disaster) is that the bag is full when you open it. None of that "peering into the abyss" to see the half dozen crisps here.

Your nuts, M'Lord...

Kims Nodder is a bag of mixed nuts. With almonds, cashews, pecans and salted peanuts, this is a perfect pub snack bag... when such a thing could be done. Sadly, I don't think they count as a substantial meal but knowing the government's current crystal clear messaging, you never know... Nice nuts, with the right amount of salt and another great snack from the box.

Genetically modified dolphin, anyone???

Flipper next, and this is where things go a little south now. As you can see, it's an approximation of a dolphin. An approximation... yeah. Still, the "classic" foam dolphin let rip a powerful scent as soon as the packet was opened, almost enough to turn the stomach - a dolphin stinking of strawberry, I think. As for the texture, it's quite soft (getting it out of the packet was fun) and chewing it reveals a decent flavour and an experience that reminded us of the white from egg shaped fun gums. It is, however, very sweet, and I struggle to see how any adult (children are different) could handle a whole dolphin(!). 

Bertie transformation not guaranteed.

Pingvin Blanding is anything but bland, a selection of liquorice and gummy sweets. Not much to add here, they taste quite nice and you'll get a similar thing if you mix up bags of Haribo and Allsorts. Now there is an idea!

Be happy I did not have to Google this image...

Now, who doesn't like to get their mouth round a Skipper's Pipe? A strong taste, cloying on the tongue and claggy to the teeth, leaving you with a bitter aftertaste. You'll like it if it's your sort of thing. As for the pipe-shaped sweet...

No plums-based innuendo here - I was worn out after my adventures with the Skipper's Pipe!

This is a stand out sweet from the box: Plum in Madeira. A thin chocolate shell surrounds a disc of marzipan and a layer of Madeira soaked plums. By Jove, it tastes delicious! The chocolate is crisp and in no way overpowers the star of the show: that filling. The highlight so far!

Though we do have chocolate toffee balls... put 'em in your mouth and suck 'em!

The Guld Toffee are more down to earth. A chocolate covered toffee that's hard enough to do service as a musket ball, before the chocolate melts away and you spend the next ten minutes trying to chew the damn thing without it stealing every filling you have. Pleasant enough if that's your thing. 

"There... are... four... fingers!" JLP may have said.

Orangestang looks like an orange flavoured Kit-Kat but it's not. Oh, no, it's a thin strip of chocolate (there's no biscuit) with a hint of crunch in there with an added punchy citrus flavour. Think a slightly sweeter version of Terry's Chocolate Orange and you're about there. As it's rather sweet, it's another one where one finger is enough for all but the sweetest of tooth's but that one you do have tastes lovely.

This is just Doodle Dandy...

The Yankie Bar is a great combination of Milky War and Mars Bar, just a bit smaller than the latter. Apparently the oldest chocolate bar in Denmark, you can certainly see why it's been around for so long. It's a brilliant chocolate bar. The right about of toffee and nougat, it's got a great taste balance and it's another snack from this box that hits all the right notes.

Similar in taste (and alcohol content) to Lambrini (i.e.  none).

Finally, we have Champis. Upon opening the can, you get quite a strong odour but in actual taste, it's very subtle and rather pleasant. The grape is just about noticeable and at a push, could be described as similar to a weak fizzy wine. We found it decent and, it must be noted, one of the first drinks we've had from a snack box that didn't want to make us hurl.

There we have the Danish box and my, what a nice change from the usual. There was nothing in here that we took an instant dislike to and that, gentle reader, is a first for our snack box experiences. True, one or two things might only get a bit of a look in but overall, this was a very good box this month. I would say "roll on December's box" but with Christmas coming up and the usual posting dates, you know it's going to be 2021. Ah well, just in time for the post-festive season diet!

A Trio of Videogaming Books.

Three books on videogaming today and, with a bit of a caveat on one, more worthy additions to my ever growing collection on the subject. At this rate, I should overtake the military history collection in about... oh, six years!

First up, The Art of Point and Click Adventures published by Bitmap Books.

After reading and thoroughly enjoying "The Games That Weren't", I had a gander at the publisher's website and when I saw this tome, I knew this had to be my next purchase. As you can see below, it arrived in  the usual very well packaged condition.

The book itself measures 26.6 x 4 x 21.7 cm, and is a tad over five hundred pages in length. You get a lovely forward by Gary Whitta (formerly of UK gaming magazine ACE, US gaming magazine PC Gamer and now US-based scriptwriter of no ill repute), backed up by a potted history of point and click adventure games, and a glossary of terms used throughout the interviews. This is where the meat of the book begins.

And what a book! Set in chronological order from 1984 to 2020, individual titles are given between two and eight full pages of screenshots and descriptive text. The superb print quality brings these to life, no matter if they're monochrome, 16-colour EGA or current gen graphics. If this book was just that then I'd be happy to pay the £30 asking price. As a catalogue of games, this is un-matched. But that's not all.

Inter spacing the games are the interviews, forty-four in total. Ranging between two and six pages in length, these not only give background on the developers of key titles in the genre, but also provide another source of screenshots and artwork. The interviews themselves are well worth reading, not only for how the individual started off in the genre but also how they fought technological constraints to realise their vision and how the games industry has developed as both a creative and a business medium. The really good thing here is that you not only hear from familiar names such as Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert, Ken Williams, Hal Barwood, Al Lowe and Charles Cecil but also from lesser known (to me, anyway) but no less talented developers such as Eric Chahi, Pierre Gilhodes, Simon Woodroffe and many more. The really sad thing after saying that is although the individuals names were unfamiliar to me, their games were not, and this tome is a great way of putting names to games, so to speak.

What this book has also done is re-kindle my interest in the wider point and click adventure genre. Sure, there are easy pickings on iOS/Android/X-Box such as LucasArts classics Grim Fandango, Full Throttle and Day of the Tentacle, but there are so many more out there and just a quick look at GOG.com reveals games featured in this book such as Bladerunner, Myst, The Dig and whole ranges of titles from the Kings Quest, Quest for Glory, Indiana Jones, Leisure Suit Larry and Space Quest series plus dozens more (and the prices are very reasonable). I know I'll be picking up some of the titles on GOG based on their mention in this book.

It is tempting to look at this book as perhaps a nostalgia trip, back to the genre's heyday of the 1980's and 90's, but that would be to miss the point. A lot of these titles are available to play today and remain excellent games in their own right. The Art of Point and Click Adventures is really a celebration. A (hefty) love letter to a form of play that, whilst not as mainstream as it once was, still retains a following whilst attracting new fans to the fold. This is an absolute must for genre fans and anyone with a passing interest. I know I say this a lot but really, the key to learning about a hobby is to push your boundaries a bit and you'll do far, far worse than to pick up a copy of this excellent reference. You never know, you might find yourself buying a few games and spending some time visiting far off worlds, meeting strange characters or just tagging along for the ride (bit like a weekend in Newcastle - pre 2020, obviously).

You can visit Bitmap Books here and check out their range of other titles. I think my next one might be The CRPG Book...

Next up is less about videogames and more about the videogames business as told by Ken Williams in Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings.

Ken Williams, along with his wife Roberta, were the founders of Sierra Online, a software developer and publisher that was responsible for some of the greatest point and click adventures ever released. I've mentioned some of these above but just to be clear, we're talking about Kings Quest, Quest for Glory, Space Quest, Police Quest, Gabriel Knight and a whole lot more. In fact, there was recently a Kickstarter for a series of three volumes (with two more promised in a future Kickstarter) detailing the entire history of Sierra. I pledged for the hardback edition and, since the funding was more than successful, will hopefully receive the first three volumes in May next year. 

But back to this book and as the author states from the get go, it isn't specifically about the games but a history of the company, that makes this an interesting if uncomfortable read. 

This is a warts and all book and the author is at pains to state that his memory on certain areas may not be exact. He also states that where his opinions are concerned, he knows that he may not be right, but that's honestly how he sees it. It's not a fun tale in a lot of respects, as once the early years pass, it becomes very much a corporate story and, if you're like me and have a healthy dose of cynicism when it comes to anything corporate (or the dreaded management speak) then this book demonstrates that whilst you may be valued when needed, when you're no longer required, the corporation just don't care. Sucks to be you. The worst part is that Williams follows the corporate voice a lot, after all, that was his job, but the human cost of his behaviour and demands (working all hours until something is finished because it's your project, being pro-active to the point of forgoing all else at home and breaking yourself for a dollar) isn't much of his concern. He might feel bad for having to have sacked most of the company at one point but that's only worth a sentence here. No contrition, no empathy. 

His attitude to labeling people by their outlook to work and attitude and how useful they are to him as a member of staff is also something I disagree with. It's very much "I only want really useful people who do so much I don't really have to manage them", or at least comes across as that. I kind of get the (predominantly) American ideal of the cult of the individual, but this seems to be another example of "I'm alright, Jack" and bugger anyone else who suffers. This is especially true when the later corporate illegalities lead to many staff losing what share value they had in the company at the time.

In the end, this is an informative book and one that should be read by anyone wanting to understand how software development worked as a business in the 1980's and 90's, and how it can still go wrong from a low level workers point of view today. That does not make it a fun read though.

You can buy the book on Kindle, where it is also part of the Unlimited plan or order it from the usual bookshops.

The last, but not least, tome is a much more pleasant read, coming as it does from RMC - The Cave. If you're not familiar with RMC - The Cave (formerly known as Retro Man Cave), this is a YouTube channel that has a primary focus on all things retro computing and gaming. It's a great channel and Neil who runs it has done a lot of work for charity off the back of it - including this rather wonderful retro calendar that will adorn my cave walls next year. I urge you to check out the channel if you haven't already.

Retro Tea Breaks Volume 1 is a collection of interviews transcribed from the YouTube channel with the addition of side notes and illustrations. As the title states, more volumes are planned (there are currently 34 tea-break videos on the channel), but in this one, you get fourteen chats with the likes of the Oliver Twins, Al Lowe, Rob Hubbard, Mark Ferrari and Richard Garriott.

The interviews are carried out well and that is down to the format - the tea break conversation. You get a real feel for the individual personalities here and whilst you can view each conversation online in its entirety, this book is about preserving select parts of them in a physical format. Speaking of which, the lovely pocket book presentation is wonderful, the binding is solid and the whole tome screams out quality. 

Despite featuring people who I have already noted are in The Art of Point and Click Adventure, there is little repetition here and I would say that for point and click fans, there is a nice crossover between the two (unrelated) books. Funded by Kickstarter, my pledge included these rather lovely art cards by Stoo Cambridge (also one of the interviewees) and the whole package was well worth the price. 

I do hope that further copies of this book will be available from the RMC store so that others can enjoy it. As for me, I'll happily support any funding efforts for future volumes!

So there you have three videogame themed books that deserve a place on your bookcase/Kindle. Now, time to get the order to Bitmap Books...

RISC OS Cloverleaf - thoughts on the funding campaign

Regular readers (including you, Eddie), may recall this post from the beginning of October about the Cloverleaf Project. This began its Kickstarter funding campaign last Tuesday and as of the time of posting, had reached 24% of its funding goal. I was going to revisit the three questions I posed at the end of that post concerning the project but as I read through the Kickstarter campaign blurb, I realised that I had this all wrong. 

The desktop range... (screenshot from Kickstarter)

... alongside the laptop and all-in-one design (screenshot from Kickstarter).

What we have is a drive to get people who don't use RISC OS into the market. The t-shirt is a marketing touch but really, the included copy of Archive magazine (latest issue reviewed here), the RISC OS Introduction book and the included software are all there to support the new user. In many ways, this mirrors the packages created for the Amiga back in the day, taking the manufacturers' bundle and adding extras. The ones I most remember are Silica Systems (pictured below) but their were many more retailers that did the same thing, such as Hobbyte, Gordon Harwood and Diamond.

I miss 90's magazine adverts.

I don't think this is a bad idea at all, to be honest and I applaud the attempt to bring RISC OS to a wider audience. I would like to see the project succeed as any new software development fed back into the core OS can only be a good thing, as is the aim to get the OS running on a different ARM chipset. However, I have some niggles about Cloverleaf that I wish to note...

Their timeline for one.

This is... aspirational? (screenshot from Kickstarter)

As you can see, there is a very small window from the end of funding to getting hardware into the hands of supporters. The Kitten is now a Raspberry Pi 4-based system and the 11-inch laptop is no longer an option (even though it's still on the timeline...). I can understand the former, as it means they can easily get some hardware out to specific backers, but the latter? Unless they can't source them anymore? As for the other systems, RISC OS does not support the RK3399 processor but they hope to have deliverable systems within three months of funding. They do state that hardware may ship without some functionality (it would have to considering their deadline for NVMe support, but actual OS support???). The thought of pledging for the top end Puma desktop and not having access to a key feature for two months sits poorly with me. Also remember, that's development and testing time - as a software QA tester by trade, I think Cloverleaf aren't leaving enough time to get their offerings to a user ready state. Unless they want to use the backers as testers which is not a good idea at all, especially if said users are new to the OS anyway. 

I know, Kickstarter is not a shop. It's a backer funded system that should, hopefully, deliver on the campaign promises. However, the Puma desktop/laptop/all-in-one pledges are not small amounts of money and I question the belief that they should ship hardware that isn't fully operational. Will new users stick with the OS if bits don't work out of the box and the introductory guide is months away? I wonder...

This campaign has been likened to that of the Spectrum Next which successfully reached it's second campaign total and then some. Cloverleaf is not at all similar to that machine. Whereas the Next is a bespoke machine that is trying to do something different, other than emulation of a retro system, Cloverleaf is, in a way, duplicating a lot of what is already out there. The last six Kickstarters I have pledged to have been for projects that have been extremely specific and unique. From histories of the PS Vita, Dreamcast and Amiga, a definitive guide to Sierra On-Line games and a history of British Bullpup Firearms, all have filled a niche where previously nothing existed. Cloverleaf doesn't, and this brings me to the hardware.

I can already buy ready made kit from a number of suppliers, ready to go out of the box and with documentation to help me along. The 4te is £250, RISCOSbits can get you a working machine from £59 and even the higher end systems don't break the £300 barrier unless you buy add-ons or go portable. These prices make Cloverleaf look expensive. Take a RISCOSbits Delta Pi Lite 256 with 4GB of  RAM: £189. Buy an Archive magazine subscription (£40) and the RISC OS 5 user guide (£20.00). Add delivery for seasoning and you get a RISC OS desktop by the end of the month with easy access to the PlingStore and PackMan to add any software you need, and plenty to read, for £249.00 plus postage - cheaper than the Kitten desktop that you might, if everything goes to plan, receive three months from now with the beginners guide three months further out. And if you want a t-shirt, RISC OS Open do them for £12.50.

You could counter that the Cloverleaf pledge also supports software development for the OS and that's what is advertised, though how much of that will benefit the RISC OS universe is open to question. If you wanted to, you can directly support the development of the OS by pledging toward the bounty schemes here so there are other ways of supporting development other than via Cloverleaf. 

I will point out here that there has been a lively thread in the RISC OS Open: Forum about the project and if you have a look through it, you'll see a good amount of dialogue from project lead, Stefan, including a bit of an explanation as to dev resources posted on the 22nd November. This is handy to know and perhaps should have been included somewhere in the Kickstarter. They want you to hand over money, so the more detail about what the project will do (not just aspire to) is a good thing.

A list of included software with Cloverleaf (screenshot from Kickstarter)

This piece is not intended as a hit job, it's really not. As I have stated above, I like the idea of the Kickstarter campaign. I hope it raises the profile of RISC OS and maybe drums up some more support. However, as an existing user, this drive is not aimed at me and, as I have demonstrated above, if you know the market, you can get alternatives to Cloverleaf products more quickly and for less money.

I admit, I was carried away by my earlier enthusiasm for Cloverleaf. Looking at it in the hard light of day from my perspective, it's not something I think will I support but then again, I am torn on the issue. I don't need another desktop system and though I do want a RISC OS laptop, I think north of £500 for something I won't get for at least another seven months is an ask too far. Truth be told, I am also holding out for the article in the next issue of Archive magazine about portable RISC OS computers, as I have yet to see a proper review of the options available and I do like to do some research before handing over a few hundred pounds on anything. 

At the end of the day, it's a personal choice and I doubt my wittering will have much sway on your decision. This a new way of trying to grow the user base and awareness which, although it has its pitfalls, I hope it manages to succeed where it can. If more information comes out via the Kickstarter page or the forums, I may change my mind, but at present, it's not for me.

Archive Magazine 25.1 Review (plus a little extra RISC OS reading)

Print magazines were once the lifeblood of computing fans of any platform. Sadly, over the years, many of those titles, both mainstream and niche, have disappeared due to declining sales, decline of the actual platform and the rise of online publishing. Titles such as Personal Computer World, Amiga Format, Acorn User and even the illustrious Computer Shopper (last issue out now) have faded away. That's not to say niche platforms have been left bereft of physical publications. Indeed, the Amiga market has the long established Amiga Future and a new title, Amiga Addict, which has recently successfully reached a minimum order goal and should be in reader's hands around the middle of December (I'll have a review of that one when I receive my copy). The same holds for the RISC OS market and it must be said, there is something reassuring about a platform still having the following to support the printed word.

Launched in 1987, Archive now has its third editor after the passing of long-time RISC OS user and writer Jim Nagel. Gavin Smith has taken up the reins and after sampling a pdf of the final issue of Jim's tenure, I took the plunge and ordered a one year subscription. This covers six issues for the princely sum of £40 (including p&p) for UK subscribers. European readers pay £46, whilst the rest of the world pays £50. 

Since this was my first physical copy of Archive, I wasn't entirely sure what I'd be getting - after all, a pdf is just a pdf. What arrived was a 52-page A5 full colour booklet. The cover is sturdy and of high quality, as are the pages, and I definitely think I am getting good value as far as the physical quality goes.

Or course, a magazine stands or falls on its content, so what do we get in this issue?

The traditional news section, covering the new R-Comp computers, the RISCOSitory awards and a new update to ScummVM among other subjects, does the job it needs to before leading onto the bulk of the magazine, the articles.

There is a great piece on how the programming language Python 3 has made its way to RISC OS, followed by an update on the new cases available from RISCOSBits, and then a very readable first part of a series about ARM chips and their architecture. There is an update on RiscOSM and Recce, the first a package that uses OpenStreetMap so you can download and save copyright-free maps for annotation and the like, the latter an add on to add images from Google Street View. I'll be honest and admit I had not heard of these before but they sound useful so I'll keep these in mind. Next up is the tale of bringing the Raspberry Pi 4 and RISC OS together, a less than simple task given the hardware changes to the latest version of the Pi.

We also have an article on getting back into BBC BASIC programming which caught my attention, and a couple of regular columns: PC Bits and Mac Matters - both of which I found enlightening. Two more programming articles, Code Burp 1 and From gawk2Mawk, via Perl were interesting but kind of went over my head - definitely a reflection of my knowledge (or lack thereof) and not the articles themselves.

The back cover gives you notes on resources listed in the mag, details of the subscriptions available, and a Next Issue box where I saw something that piqued my attention: a comparison of the two available portable RISC OS computers - the Pi-Top 2 and the ARMbook. That I can't wait to read!

Are there any downsides to this publication? Well, there are a couple of formatting issues that, in reality, don't spoil the magazine, and the editor has already stated that there was very much a learning curve for this issue, given that it was his first, so there is no need to judge harshly here. Other than that, no, I can't see any negatives at all. The price per issue is decent (including that all important postage and packaging) given the nature of the publication, and the actual physical quality of the magazine is very good indeed. The quality of the writing is high and whilst some of the articles are more technically minded than others, that just creates a good balance for all experience levels of the readership. 

This is a great first issue for the new editor and I look forward to many more. If you are a user of RISC OS or just have an interest in the operating system, I heartily recommend checking Archive out. I know I'll be keeping each issue from now on in a safe place for future reference.

Oh, and a quick note about this, the RISC OS User Guide, covering the most recent version of the operating system, 5.28 (released in October this year). At nearly 600 pages, this is not a small tome but it covers all you would need to know about using RISC OS, the bundled applications and utilities and hardware set up for networks, printers and the like. It's well illustrated with screenshots where needed though not in colour. Having said that, it's only £20 plus £4.50 postage so I can't see a reason to complain. Another very welcome addition to the computing bookshelf.