** PD News / 738 words **

Willie's Adventures

** WIL_AD1.GIF **
** WIL_AD2.GIF overlapped? **

Work on the dazzling Falcon platform game, Willie's Adventures, 
continues to progress at a steady rate. There is no firm release 
date yet but whenever the New Beat Development guys say they are 
improving something, they mean it, as shown by the playable 
preview demos of WA. According to co-programmer, Thomas Bergstrom, 
the project's scale has far exceeded original targets. Right now 
the music replay system is being overhauled to make more efficient 
use of resources, so if all goes to plan this will allow even more 
intense graphical splendour. New characters and level designs are 
also absorbing substantial development time. For now we can admire 
the latest screenshots, which are looking better than ever. Watch 
this space.

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PH COUNT DOWN

** COUNTDWN.GIF here **

This freeware utility program can count down the number of days to 
ANY event by reading data from an editable ASCII configuration 
file. It's small enough to leave open on your desktop - all it 
needs are sound FX to mark the occasions. You can download a copy 
from:

** BC **
William Wong
Email: wongck@letterbox.com
http://probehouse.atari.org
** /BC **

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GhostScript Update

If you want to read PostScript or PDF files on an Atari this is 
the utility you need. GhostScript, reviewed in AC#12, has recently 
been updated to v1.2 which is compiled with the latest Libs and 
kernel available (5.50), the Atari laser printer driver now loads 
into ST RAM, and there's a couple of tweaks to its user interface. 
A utility TTP is now included which should help reading PDF files, 
though familiarity with a Command Line Interpreter (CLI) such as 
Mupfel is recommended.
 Thanks to Peter West/TransAction English RSC file and docs are 
available from:

www.cix.co.uk/~derryck/

There's a link from here to the binaries. You will need either the 
ST or TT version of GhostScript and the PS-550.LZH archive for the 
overlays and sample files, plus the first of the two font archives 
for some fonts.
 This is to be the last version of GhostScript for the Atari from 
Christian, so if anyone wants to take up the baton the sources are 
available on his web site at:
 http://www.tu-harburg.de/~smcf1605

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CBHD 

CBHD is a freeware SCSI hard disk driver which is ideal for anyone 
who doesn't need the sophisticated facilities of commercial driver 
software.

Thanks to Peter West/TransAction there is now English 
documentation and RSC files for CBHD and its associated extras 
including the two CPXs. You'll also need a copy of the original 
CHBD archive.

English bit and pieces:

http://www.cix.co.uk/~derryck/

Original German archive (and various ftp sites):
http://members.aol.com/steffene/Software/CBHD.html

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Lottery Companion v5.1

Mark's UK National Lottery program now has a brand new ticket 
checker routine along with other minor changes and bug fixes.

** BC **
Mark Butler
Email: Mark.A.Butler@btinternet.com
http://www.btinternet.com/~lottery.companion/
** /BC **

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CIPHER 0.0.5

** CIPHER.GIF here **

CIPHER is a simple file encryption/decryption utility designed to 
provide an easy to use, reliable, and simple method for users to 
protect their files from casual prying eyes. Using CipherView, you 
can encrypt important text files once, and simply view then via 
CipherView whenever you need to refer to them without needing to 
decrypt the files and loading them into another viewer - which 
means there's never a copy of the unencrypted lurking on you hard 
disk.
With CipherView, developed by Elmar Wisotzki, installed as an 
application for whatever file extender you choose to give 
encrypted files and you can read them from the desktop by 
double-clicking on the files and supplying a password.
CIPHER 0.0.5 is not file compatible with version 0.0.2 so to 
convert CIPHER 0.0.2 files to 0.0.5 you'll have to decrypt them 
using CIPHER 0.0.2 and re-encrypt them using CIPHER 0.0.5.

** BC **
Noah Silva
Email: DrNoah@Drexel.edu
http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~unsilva/soft/cipher/english.html
** /BC **

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STLink version 5.4beta

STLink5, programmed by Gary Bainbridge, enables files to be 
transferred between the Psion 5 and Atari computers. This release 
offers the following improvements since the last release:

** UL **
* Baud rate selection
* Improved long file name handling
* Cut-and-Paste emulates the 'Copy anywhere' function of PsiWIn 
2.2
* Preferences may be saved, including file mask settings
* Installation program to load the Psion part of the software.
* Support for file conversion!
** /UL **

Unfortunately due to copyright problems Gary cannot include the 
file converters (written by Jeremy Smith) in this archive but he's 
hoping to resolve these problems soon.

** BC **
Gary Bainbridge
Email: gbainbridge@cix.co.uk
** /BC **