By Kevin Jones

Describe your Atari setup I have a 520 STe which I upgraded to 4mb last year, and I have a TUS 234mb HD (very good), Commodore 1084ST monitor (colour), external DSDD (nice and quiet), Epson LQ100 dm printer (noisy at times but very good quality for a dot), external Supra Fax modem, mouse (smooth compfy design) and a quickshot joypad (most reliable joystick thing I have, works well, 5 years old I reckon) and last but not least a Jaguar powerpad (esp for Substation). What is your Atari's main use? I put it to many uses, but now I use it more for serious stuff like WP and DTP. Most recently I have been gamestesting for Stosser software, and thus I have the insight into the new game Hero 2, lets just say the sound is amazing in it. How long have you been an Atari user? I must have have got my very first computer about 10 or 11 years ago, it was an Atari XE with 64k RAM. I got it from Toys R Us and we had to put a plug on it. It was an excellent computer and I was very impressed with it, it only had a few games but it had BASIC built in too. For those who don't know this computer, it was a console with a keyboard with it, and you could get a floppy disk drive if you wanted, and a printer too I believe. About 2 or 3 years later I found I couldn't get games for this particular one so I bought a computer magazine called ST Format, it was a very thin mag but it had an advert in it for Silica. With a slighty biased view I checked out the Atari's first and thought "that's for me" and I bought an Atari STFM with a big load of software with it. I was very happy with the purchase. What is your favourite Atari program? This is a hard question, there are so many things that I like and so many different areas, in the issue 10 of Atari Times you can see my favourite games list, so now I'll pick out an art package, WP, DTP, music, accessory and utility. The first art package I used was called Neochrome and it came free with the ST, and now I have got Neochrome Master. I never got used to Delux Paint and I really liked the big magnifier on Neochrome, I could play around with detail very well. The first WP I used was called 1st Word, it too came with the ST, and I used it for many years until I got 1st Word Plus, I liked it's style and never got used to anything else, and so I stuck with it. It has all the things I need, graphics, spelling and the styles like bold italics etc. The first DTP I used was on an ST F coverdisk, it was called EZ something, but I never got used to it. Later I got a cool program called Fleet Street Publisher and have created many cards and labels on it. It is a bit peculiar to look at in med res, because of the way it is stretched, so a high res monitor would be best to go with it, I got used to it though. The first music prog I used came with the ST, it was called Music Maker and was VERY simple to use. Later I tried Quartet off an ST F coverdisk and quite liked it, and have put a few things together on it. It too was quite easy to use. I don't remember the first acc I loaded but the best one I used is called James The Butler. It has many useful things in it, I use it to ship my HD and to protect the monitor when I am away from it I don't remember my first use of a utility either but I found this interesting program that allows you to print picture files, I use this one whenever I want to print out one of my Neochrome masterpieces (well cheapo pics). What is your opinion of the Atari market today? The commercial market is practically non existent and new titles are scarce, but there are many people still creating excellent PD software titles. I don't know what it is like in other countries but in the UK we do have a few good things going, like Atari Computing and Atari Times, Stosser Software, the Effect members, Atari on IRC, check out #atari using ircnet.demon.co.uk port 6667 if u want to get there for sure. Tell us more about yourself Well I am a 17 year old student (18 soon) studying Business, Computing and Maths at A Level in a small unknown place called Wigan & Leigh college. I don't have as much time as I would like to go out, too much work to do (slave drivers!) but I do keep in contact with the Atari community, ever since ST F closed I felt as though I had lost a part of me, but now I am finding so much more. I am very protective of my Atari, and those who know me will know this to be true. I can be found at #atari and my nick is AtariMad or you can email me at kevj@clara.net or check out my web page at http://home.clara.net/kevj/ and seek out my Atari page (Just a little advertising, hehe). Over time I have collected hundreds of Atari games, most issues of ST F and a couple of issues of some other ST mags. Lookin around the room now I see disks scattered all over the place, so I'll wrap up here and get some work done.