Path: news1.icaen!news.uiowa.edu!chi-news.cic.net!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!news-peer.gsl.net!news.gsl.net!portc01.blue.aol.com!audrey02.news.aol.com!not-for-mail From: bmbj13@aol.com (Bmbj13) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 Subject: Dormant Issue #0 (complete) Date: 30 Jun 1997 18:15:44 GMT Lines: 262 Message-ID: <19970630181500.OAA25114@ladder02.news.aol.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ladder02.news.aol.com X-Admin: news@aol.com Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Dormant: Proving the Apple II is NOT dead, one day at a time Contents: I. Letter from Ed Thorson II. Odessa Entertainment Newsflash III. PongLife 2 Released and Discussed IV. The Night Life V. The World of Stuart Bedlam VI. Odessa Entertainment Pick-up Site VII. Odessa Entertainment Recent Releases VIII. Feedback, and email addys I. Letter from Ed Hey A2 sufferers,There hasn't been much of a demand to get DORMANT on the ball, but since we've recently received a few subscribers (sorry sufferers if we haven't checked this email addy recently), I guess a short release is in order. II. Odessa Entertainment Newsflash Great news from Odessa Entertainment. Not only did we get to see another version of PongLife out (v3.01), but PongLife 2 was also released!!! Not to mention SFmm1 (freeware), with the second issue pending. III. PONGLIFE 2 Biggest news in the history of Odessa Entertainment. This thing is at least three years in the making (though it probably doesn't show). "Most of those years, I was sitting on the concept twiddling my thumbs," Editor, Ben Johnson said. "It wasn't until I got some help, via Thorson, Bedlam, Paine, Turley, and yes, even Dudley, that the ball even started rolling. So I guess I'd say, this issue is really only a couple of months old, which gives me great hope that PongLife 3 will see publication before the turn of the century." Good news is the release. Bad news, at least to some, is the newly imposed ShareWare fee. "The five buck SW fee is moderate," says Bob Crite, a newcomer to the IIGS community, "but this thing's going to be monthly, or bimonthly. That can really add up." The editor, Johnson, however, argues that many magazines in the marketplace are Five dollars, or more, especially for the higher-end publications. And considering PongLife is between four and five disks in length, whereas our closest competitor, PowerGS (which is probably now defunct) also ran at a five dollar SW fee, but was only one disk in length, the price is very moderate. "But until the bills are paid for, either through advertisements, or collected fees, PongLife is never going to be a masterpiece. It's amazing how few people will dispense with their time for nothing, these days. It's bad enough that most talented people don't have a IIGS and would probably never see their work. We need money to pay people for their work." Ben went on to explain, "I know in the beginning, such a long time ago, I said PongLife would always be a freeware venture. But at this time, that concept is just no longer feasible. I toyed with the idea of selling it exclusively through PL.Distributions, but then we'd be the ones paying for advertisements. And then there's the question of just how do you go about reaching the A2 world effectively. I think we've got to think of PongLife like public television: Probably not everyone is not going to see it, but the one's that do, on a regular basis, are going to find some value in it. It should be free, but someone's got to pay for it. So the ShareWare fee is our fund-drive, without being too incredibly annoying about it. We're not going to beg, but we're also not going to be that wonderful, until the cash river begins to flow. At least a tiny trickle is all we can ask. "Stuart, Ed, Alan, and myself, have vowed to provide our services for free. But we're mainly writers, and not graphic artists, as the reader can probably tell. We had to pay Rex for his work, out of our own pockets, but that's understandable, and he's probably going to want a substantial pay raise soon, knowing the temperament of talk show hosts. Whether or not he's going to get it, however, will be something to discuss. He's not going to get Letterman's salary though, I'll tell you that right now." "Our biggest segment of PongLife, though," says Stuart Bedlam, mainly a creative consultant to PongLife, "is The Night Life. And I think it's quite spectacular. Perhaps not on a visional sense. Well, actually, definitely not on a visual sense. But Rex is very funny, and I think he'll go places. I only hope he'll stick around this computer for a little while longer." IV. The Night Life Starring Rex Dudley and his Immutable Sidekick, PongBoy Guests: Stuart Bedlam (Editor of the new Odessa Entertainment diskazine, SFmm), Dr. Nudar Naphlamitys, inter dimensional traveler, and Ben Johnson "I thought it would be funny," Johnson said, "to bring back an old element of PongLife in the form of Dudley's sidekick. PongBoy was an Icon I used in the earlier releases as a kind of host himself. He wasn't a real person, but he presented things like "the Download Circus", and would have insightful quotes from the many books he had written. It was all rather silly, and we had planned to cut him from PL2. But PongBoy just didn't want to die. But, now he's a real person. And, this is more Bedlam's fault that my own. He brought a couple of his english friends over, also writers, I don't know why we can't know anyone useful, by the names of Nigel Fork and Douglas Peel. These were a couple of good natured guys, with a background in stage, and luckily enough didn't mind doing something for nothing. So, now you know we hired them on the spot. "Douglas is a big man, with a booming voice, which lent him to play the part of Naphlamitys perfectly. Fork is more soft spoken, and a little shy, so he got stuck with the PongBoy roll. "PongBoy's there mostly to be destroyed by Dudley, whenever Dudley deems fit, as when a joke doesn't go well, (which is quite often), or when he doesn't have a joke at all,or just when he's in the mood for destruction." Both Fork and Peel come together again, in the next release of SFmm, in which they discuss the film, "The Lost World". (See next issue of Dormant.) V. The World of Bedlam "It wasn't so much that I was Ben's friend that got me the assignment," Stuart says of SFmm. "In fact, I didn't really want to do it, in the beginning. But Ben was quite adamant about the whole thing." In the same interview, Ben told us, "I was just tired of getting rejection letters, time and time again. I know it's the process by which a writer becomes a writer, but enough already. I've got a stack as big as my head. Of course, I haven't gotten so many lately. But, that could be due to the fact that I haven't written much lately, more involved with paying bills, the mortgage, and on and on. But, I thought it would be a swell idea to create a magazine which could never reject me, or Stuart either, now, for that matter. When other people submit stories, and articles to us, they'll probably get rejected, because this isn't a place of worship. We're not taking in every poor traveler who comes through the door. "Acceptees can expect a non-payment contract, and the thrill of being published. But at the moment, that's all we can offer. But, that's the same offer many many print publishers, in the small press field, are also offering. You don't need a specific computer to read those." "It was a story I showed him that started the whole thing," Bedlam said. "By the Light of the Silverish Moon, which I thought was pretty good when I wrote it like six years ago--I've since amended my opinion. I pulled it out of a box, and showed it to Ben, and he thought it was pretty funny, and liked the idea that I had plots for twenty-four sequels, which I must admit aren't yet written. When SFmm4 comes around, I hope to have the second one completed. As an unpublished novelist, the deadline makes me a tad nervous." VI. Odessa Entertainment Pick-up Site Anything Odessa Entertainment releases, can be obtained via the internet through: http://ground.isca.uiowa.edu/apple2/Odessa/ If a recent release cannot be found in this folder, then it is probably still in the apple2/upload directory: http://ground.isca.uiowa.edu/apple2/upload/ VII. Odessa Entertainment Recent Releases and Contents Three releases to report, this issue: a.) PongLife 1 v3.01; b.) PongLife 2; c.) SFmm 1 7a. PONGLIFE #1: release v3.0.1 (Release Notes, partial) [FREEWARE] Fully updated and expanded. Mountain Construction Set (Classic PL feature)* Interview with Tony Morales (Classic PL feature)* Software Review: Circuitry (Semi-Classic PL feature)* Back-Talk (NEW)+ Simple Text Viewer (NEW)++ And, probably more if you look hard enough. There's always more. * Classic PongLife stacks include either improved appearance or navigation or both, but not necessarily IMPROVED CONTENT! (You have been forewarned -Ed) + BackTalk is a neat little stack that will call you all sorts of nasty names. (Great for all you S 'n' M-ers out there) Just push start to get verbally abused. (Must be taller than the top line ->] to use--We have our ethics and standards, after all -Ed) ++ STR is chock full of old PL related crap/stuff. From the original GEnie Roundtable discussion group (Auri's old rants, excluded--only because they had been erased before I could see them), to The History of Noisetracker. 7b. PongLife 2 [ShareWare: $5.00] FoodLife: Accent on "By the Light of the Silverish Moon". Contains recipes from the main character of the story. Music by: JS Bach The Night Life, Starring Rex Dudley Guests; Stuart Bedlam (Editor of the new Odessa Entertainment diskazine, SFmm), Dr. Nudar Naphlamitys, inter dimensional traveler, and Ben Johnson Night Life Theme by: Ben Johnson By the Light of the Silverish Moon, Part 2, by Stuart Bedlam Continuation of the story from SFmm1, concludes in SFmm3 and 4 Music by: Ben Johnson The Paine Report, by Alan Paine (Alan looks at the structure or the Apple 2 community) The Paine Report Theme by: Ben Johnson synthLAB Tweaking, by Charles T. Turley A Personal Interview with Glen Bredon, by Charles T. Turley (Charles interviews the author of Merlin) 7c. SFmm 1 (Science Fiction Media Monthly) [FREEWARE] A short, introduction magazine, edited by Stuart Bedlam. By the Light of the Silverish Moon, Part One by Stuart Bedlam Bark by Ben Johnson VIII. FEEDBACK Please send any questions or inquiries about this publication to: dormant@juno.com. (ONLY) Other Addresses: Ben Johnson (Editor [PL]), assist. Ed [SFmm]): bmbj@juno.com Ed Thorson (Editor [Dormant], assist. Ed [PL]): ed_thorson@juno.com Stuart Bedlam (Editor [SFmm]): sbedlam@juno.com Alan Paine (Contributing Writer [PL]): ABigPaine@juno.com Charles T. Turley (Contributing Writer [PL]): cturley@grin.net And, don't forget - if you'd like to submit to contribute to any of the above publications, please query Ed Thorson. All contents Copyright (c) 1997 by Ed Thorson and Odessa Entertainment. All Rights Reserved. This publication cannot be distributed by any other means than by the discretion of the copyright holder. Dormant is an email publication. Those issues other than issue 0 will only be transferred by this means. Odessa Entertainment, PongLife, SFmm, Dormant, and diskazine are all trademarks of Ben Johnson