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From: bmbj13@aol.com (Bmbj13)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Dormant Issue #0 (complete)
Date: 30 Jun 1997 18:15:44 GMT
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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.