FEATURES

THE CRASH CHALLENGE

Commando’s the game, the result’s the usual

TECH NICHE SUPPLEMENT

A 16-page focus on hardware and utilities — including the inside story on Sinclair’s computers and the superclone SAM

CRASH COURSE

Swotty Scottish school software from Scetlander

WRITE YOUR OWN ADVENTURES...

... but how? Programmer Anthony Bailey compares the GAC and PAW utilities.

FANZINE FILE

What’s black, white, occasionally green, and red in one or two places?

REGULARS

NEWS

Telecomsoft in a fight or two

LLOYD MANGRAM’S FORUM

CRASH is deceitful and corrupt, says a reader. Oh no it’s not, says Lloyd.

NICK ROBERT’S PLAYING TIPS

More maps than an orienteering club!

CRASH COMMS

BRENDON KAVANAGH’S PBM MAILBOX

Readers break up over Shattered World

ON THE SCREEN

ADVENTURE TRAIL

Sinbad and the Golden Ship gets tipped, budgets get reviewed

PHILLIPA IRVING’S FRONTLINE

Philosophy and boxing

ROBIN CANDY’S SCORES

CRASH READERS’ CHARTS

PREVIEWS

ET AL

Video talk and a caption comp

DO IT YOURSELF

DRIVE YOURSELF CRAZY...

... with a radio-controlled car from Titus

GET ABOMINABLY SNOWY...

... with Yeti artwork from Destiny

SEE HOW THEY MADE PLATOON...

... win all the storyboards from Ocean

FALL IN LOVE...

... with Romantic Robot’s add-ons

GO FOR GOLD...

... with £50 of software from Et Al

LISTEN!...

... to Digital Integration’s prizes: personal stereos

When it happened, of course, there was none of the shouting, none of the panic, none of the breaking of windows or looting or even the soft despair of mortality as the world rolled to its dead end. Some things stopped: there was no more bingo in the suddenly tasteful Sun, there were few arrests, there were no tourists in Washington.

But Washington was a perfect microcosm of the world it had created, now so close to destruction by the maturation of its own technology. And on this bright Sunday, Capitol Hill shone scrubbed in its untarnished power as the President brought together his roles — family man, leader of men, commander-in-chief, accepter of defeat — in the final broadcast.

‘Final’? No-one there would have thought of it as final; perhaps there was more slovenliness than usual in the CBS crew, perhaps the old President’s own face was showing fewer than normal of the smile lines he had so often paraded on the hustings beside his perfect life.

Yet the Potomac rolled undisturbed and there was still the odd protestor bothering to pace outside the White House; all crises were equal in PR terms.

The President began, conscious for the first time of his own corniness. ‘My fellow Americans’ — he wondered how many were out there, at the end of cables and aerials, how many were really honest Iowa farm stock with a kitchen radio and how many were Wall Street slickers with five screens running at once — ‘you know as much as I do about the coming days which face our country’ — who had written this?

Ingham — it was Ingham who wrote it, grey Ingham, once the keen Washington journalist fantasising his own Watergate, now a sour and doubtful aide — Ingham, tapping on the President’s shoulder now.

The CBS men woke up. Outside there was an aeroplane and a bird: symbols of this watershed the cameraman would never touch.

Ingham was still tapping on the President’s shoulder when he started reading the telex, and he had to jerk irritably away, cursing the cameras as he did so.

Then the old actor’s sense took over. ‘Yes, in hours we will meet the greatest trial we have faced since our nation’s birth. But now there is good news.’ A pause — melodramatise? Or speak strongly, go straight ahead?

Go straight ahead. ‘The next issue of CRASH will be on sale March 31.’

ACTING MANAGING EDITOR Barnaby Page
STAFF WRITERS Mark Caswell, Dominic Handy, Gordon Houghton, Lloyd Mangram, Ian Phillipson
SUBEDITOR David Peters
PHOTOGRAPHERS Cameron Pound, Michael Parkinson
OFFICE Frances Mable, Glenys Powell
TECHNICAL WRITERS Simon N Goodwin, Jon Bates
PBM WRITER Brendon Kavanagh
STRATEGY WRITER Philippa Irving
EDUCATION WRITER Rosetta McLeod
CONTRIBUTORS Robin Candy, Mike Dunn, Paul Evans, Dave Hawkes, Nathan Jones, Nick Roberts, Ben Stone, Paul Sumner, Bym Welthy, Nik Wild
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Roger Kean
PRODUCTION CONTROLLER David Western
ART DIRECTOR Markie Kendrick
DESIGN Wayne Allen
REPROGRAPHICS SUPERVISOR Jonathan Rignall
PROCESS AND PLANNING Matthew Uffindell, Nick Orchard, Ian Chubb, Robert Millichamp
ADVERTISEMENT MANAGER Roger Bennett
ADVERTISEMENT EXECUTIVE Andrew Smales
SUBSCRIPTIONS Denise Roberts
MAIL ORDER Carol Kinsey
COVER BY Oliver Frey

REVIEWS

  • ATF Digital Integration
  • BMX Kidz Firebird Silver
  • Captain America GO!
  • Energy Warrior M.A.D. X
  • Firefly Special FX
  • Garfield The Edge
  • The Hunt for Red October Grand Slam Entertainments
  • Jetbike Simulator Code Masters Plus
  • Kikstart II Mastertronic
  • The Krypton Factor TV Games
  • Los Angeles SWAT Entertainment USA
  • Madballs Ocean
  • Merlin Firebird Silver
  • Microball Alternative Software
  • Nigel Mansell’s Grand Prix Martech
  • Northstar Gremlin Graphics
  • PHM Pegasus Electronic Arts
  • Piggy Top Ten Hits
  • Platoon Ocean
  • Rollaround Mastertronic
  • Rolling Thunder US Gold
  • Scumball Bulldog
  • Tetris Mirrorsoft