Single-handed you must defend a desert town as it comes under attack from wave after wave of deadly enemy helicopters. And they've a fearsome arsenal to use against you - missiles, flak batteries and radar jammers.
Virgin Games is convinced it'll be a runway success, so if you want more info on departure times give them a buzz on nn-nnn nnnn.
I found out today that my secret diaries are being made into a computer game. Can't say I'm very pleased as I haven't even got a computer. Maybe I can persuade Dad to sell the dog and buy me a Spectrum. I phoned Pandora to tell her about
Anyway, once the game's out I'll be dead popular, then she'll be sorry. I only hope they cut out the bits about my spots. I'd better phone Joe or Greg Lang at Mosaic Publishing Ltd on nn-nnn nnnn and find out.
Remember we asked you to find the 61st room in Miner Willy's mansion. Well, it seems that there's hardly a person in the kingdom who didn't find it. Course, we did catch a couple of you - one of the 'wettest' entries came from Steven Smithson of Blackpool who wrote in, "I claim the prize for telling you where the 61st room is ... in Dave Nicholl's head." Sorry Steve - that's where the room came from, but it's definitely in JSW now! And we'd have thought that coming from Blackpool you'd have been the first to find it. We'll let Gareth Morgan of Great Sankey rhyme you into the secret:
No problem finding
April Showers,
No searching round
for hours and hours,
within your reach,
Climb up the rope
above the beach!
As A L Hodson of Northfields wrote, where else would you expect to find a shower but when you're on the beach!
And now the moment you've all been waiting for - who's the lucky person whose name came out of the Ed's hat first? Well, our congratulations go to J Blackler of Lancaster - keep an eye out for a large package of 10 Speccy games in the very near future.
So, you all thought that April Showers was an April fool and then you found it wasn't (well, most of you found it wasn't). But hang on a sec, what have you just been doing with your time? We thought you'd got JSWitis months ago and here you are dusting down your copies and playing it all over again. Now don't you think that's just a little bit foolish?
Longman Publishing / £5.95
The Hacker's Handbook
Century Communications / £4.95
The recent interest in Data Communications (or Comms as it's come to be known) is growing rapidly. This is partly due to the coming of Prestel and Micronet, and partly because it's now possible to lay your hands on some relatively cheap modems. But why should you shell out for one? The modems may be quite cheap but it can still be expensive if you spend hours on the phone to some remote computer.
All very confusing for the beginner but help is at hand. It comes in the form of an excellent book from Longman Publishing called The Hacker's Handbook. The authors, Geof Wheelwright and Ian Scales, start you off from scratch with a short discussion on why Comms is important. They then take you through all the different stages ot communicating, from buying a modem to a complete run-down on how to use Prestel and other remote database systems. The style's clear and easy to understand and all of the technical jargon is explained in footnotes and in a glossary of terms. This really is an excellent introduction to Comms with a lot of good, and up to the minute, information.
The second book is also, rather confusingly, called The Hacker's Handbook, this time from Century Communications. Its aims, however, are completely different. Hugo Cornwall (and there's a made-up name if ever I've heard one!) sets out to show you how to 'hack' - to gatecrash into computers when you haven't been invited or when you haven't paid the entrance fee. To boldly go where no-one wants you and where you shouldn't be! Remember the hoo-ha about the Prestel hacker who broke into Prince Philip's private account? So far, the results of hacking haven't been too disastrous - no nuclear red alerts like the one in the film Wargames, or none we know about. But you must remember that hacking amounts to stealing, whether of information or computer time. Indiscriminate hacking can also cause damage which costs a lot to put right if the hacker manages to do something really 'clever' by accident.
The book does contain some very useful information, especially the chapter on radio communications, but I can't really recommend it. Most computers holding 'secure' data are very well protected and I just can't see the point in spending a fortune on phone bills trying to get into them. You'd be better advised to use the money to gain legitimate access to the computer. At least that way you won't have the police knocking on your door in a dawn raid!
Dave Nicholls
