STEVE DELANEY ~SECOND.FIL~ ~TOP.BLK~ INTERVIEW WITH STEVE DELANEY OF FLOPPYSHOP PDL ~TOP.BLK~ By Slimer This time we got an interview with one of the pillars of todays Atari scene, Steve Delaney. He runs a large Public Domain Library together with his partner Irene Lamb. Both are responsible for a professional and friendly approach towards their clients. Floppyshop offers a wide variety of high quality PD software for the ST, STE, TT and Falcon series. Next to PD software there are also some commercial packages available. I personally see Steve as a graduator for the health of the Atari scene, if Floppyshop folds than we're close to death ! Okay, now for a peek behind the curtains as we interview the mainman himself, -------------------------------------------------------------- INTERVIEW ~DISKLINE.BLK~ CAN YOU TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF (BIRTHDAY, HOBBY'S OR WORK) ? I am 33 years old (born 20th May 1961) and married with a nine year old daughter. I have been interested in computers since I first used a DEC at college about fifteen years ago. I am known to be a workaholic and tend to work about eighty hours a week Monday to Friday. I spend most of the weekends with my daughter Samantha. Hobbies and work tend to be one and the same, computers! I work on computers and enjoy writing about them. I also like relaxing and watching a film. Any type of film, it doesn't matter. I just find it a good way to relax. ARE THERE PARTICULAR PERSONS YOU WOULD LIKE TO MEET IN YOUR LIFE (WRITER, ARTISTS OR OTHERS) !? I can't think of anybody at the moment. I'm sure there are two or three people I'd like to meet but nobody comes to mind at present. IF SO, WHAT WOULD BE THE FIRST QUESTION IN YOUR MIND TO ASK HIM/HER ? I'll have to pass on that one! WHICH MUSIC TASTE(S) DO YOU LIKE AND WHAT EQUIPMENT DO YOU USE TO PLAY IT WITH !? My music tastes are pretty much middle of the road. I don't like classical stuff but I don't like heavy metal either. If you're looking for some names how about Simply Red, Cher, Gloria Estefan, Elton John, Tina Turner, T'Pau, Kate Bush, Phil Collins and probably about a dozen more that I can't think of just now! We have a Pioneer PL-Z95 stackable system with turntable, amplifier, graphic equalizer, double tape decks and double CD player. WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT COMPUTER SETUP (INCLUDING SOME HISTORY, LIKE YOUR FIRST MACHINE) ? I had a ZX81 for about three months. That was probably in 1982 or 1983. Strangely enough, I bought a Texas TI99/4A just as they went out of production. It was a great computer, pity it didn't catch on. The next step up was a 16K spectrum which lasted a few weeks, followed by a 48K Spectrum. I must have kept that one for at least six months, maybe longer. I got a good deal on a Commodore 64 and sold the Spectrum. The C64 lasted about a year and was followed by an Amstrad CPC 6128, my first disk based computer, complete with non-standard 3 inch disks! I kept that one for well over a year and in April 1987 bought a 520 STFM. The rest is history as they say...... I've bought and sold quite a lot of Atari hardware and software over the years. My own personal setup nowadays consists of a Falcon 030 (4 Meg + 65 Mb hard drive) upgraded to 32MHz, connected to a Tatung SVGA monitor and a Hewlett Packard Deskjet 560C. I also have an STFM upgraded to 4 Meg, with five switchable TOS versions up to TOS 2.06. It also has switchable overscan, a blitter (yes on a STFM!) and a high density drive. It is connected to a Commodore 1084 monitor and a home made 90 Mb SCSI drive which has been adapted for connection to the ST or Falcon. My mother is a partner in the business too and she has two STE's (1 Meg and 4 Meg) and an STFM (1 Meg) connected to two Philips CM8833 monitors. She has a 40 Mb Reference 40 hard drive and TOS 2.06 fitted in one of the STE's. We also have a 200 dpi hand scanner, Vidi RGB and VideoMaster, although none of these get used very much nowadays. Software-wise we use Superbase Personal for the mailing list, First Word Plus for letter writing and Calamus for DTP. K-Spread 4 handles the accounts. I also tend to use Imagecopy 3 and GEM-View quite a lot. I use a few PD and Shareware like Selectric, ST Zip, RDD 3, FS2 (Delta Force version) and New Depack on a regular basis. There's probably a few more programs we use but those are the ones that spring to mind. CAN YOU GIVE US YOUR TRUE AND HONEST OPINION ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE FALCON AND ATARI AS A WHOLE !? The Falcon is a great computer. I've always said that it is over priced but apart from that its a worthwhile buy. Atari have supported the Falcon as well as they supported the TT. In other words, they've been as much use as a car without wheels! At the right price and with the right advertising, Atari could have sold about five times as many Falcons. This is obviously of no interest to them as they are burying their heads in the sand with the Jaguar. In my opinion, it is never safe to place all your eggs in one basket. They say that if the Jaguar does well, they will have the money to push to Falcon. I agree that they will have the money to do it, but they'll find something 'more interesting' to spend the money on. Atari may well succeed with the Jaguar but I believe that it will be short term until something bigger and better comes along. Until then, they can enjoy their success. The Falcon has a shorter future than it would have had if Atari had put their full weight behind it. Nevertheless, the Falcon community is strong, both users and developers. There is an enthusiasm for the Falcon that never existed for the TT (although it's a powerful machine too) and that never could exist in the stuffy world of PC clones. Top companies are continuing to release new software and hardware and there's word of Falcon clones coming on the scene. If they can be pitched at the right price and promoted properly, they will revitalize the user base. Even if Atari stopped producing the Falcon tomorrow, the users and developers would still be going strong a few years from now. Being honest, I've never seen so much PD and Shareware software being released for a relatively new machine. There's more Falcon specific software than STE specific titles! WHICH COMPUTER PROGRAMS DO YOU LIKE TO SEE MORE FOR THE FALCON ? All types of programs. My own interests lie in graphics and DTP but music and games are just as important to others. Software is appearing but there's just not enough of it. WHEN WAS FLOPPYSHOP FOUNDED AND WHAT GAVE YOU THE IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE !? I started up the user group in 1987 in the hope that it would grow into something bigger. It was very slow to start but within a year I decided to give it my best shot and went full time. I've never regretted it. I was looking for a business opportunity in a line of work that I enjoyed and it worked out well. I guess I was just lucky! One of the things I really enjoyed was running the user group and producing our bimonthly newsletter. Unfortunately it ended up taking up too much time and I started losing money on it so I had to close it down three years ago. I'm glad to say that I am still in contact with a lot of the friends I made through the user group. CAN YOU GIVE US YOUR OPINION ABOUT THE PUBLIC DOMAIN SECTOR AT THE MOMENT ? The Public Domain sector in the UK has filled up with 'Cowboys' over the last two or three years. Let me explain - Cowboys is an expression in we use in Britain to mean people who are just in it for the money, don't really know much about what they are doing and provide a sub-standard service. The PD market has shrunk quickly here and the Cowboys are shutting down. Some are leaving the scene because the can't make enough money to satisfy their greed and others have gone bust. Unfortunately one or two respectable libraries have also closed down which is a shame to say the least. The UK market will soon be left with just a few dedicated companies running the PD scene, giving an excellent standard of service and being knowledgeable about the products they distribute and the equipment they work on. This can only be good news for the users. As regards the quality of software being written and the dedication shown by authors, this has never been higher. Some of the more recent releases are as good as commercial software you used to pay œ25 for! Some are even better than commercial software. The authors are delivering top quality software and the public are even starting to pay their registration fees. Now that must be good news. WHAT IS YOUR OPINION ON THE FALCON SCENE AND THE COMPUTER SCENE AS A WHOLE ? I think I've really covered most of this in previous answers. I'll just add that the Atari market is an enthusiasts market. Everyone is bubbling over with ideas and does their best to get the most out of their machines. This is enough to sustain the ST and Falcon for some time even if Atari themselves do decide to leave the scene. DO YOU SEE PIRACY AS A THEFT (PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY) ? Piracy is theft in the sense that you are depriving those who wrote the software of their income. The long term consequences are that not enough copies get sold in order to make it worth the company's while writing another product for the Atari. It also has the effect of leaving the programmer disillusioned, especially if he's on royalties, and the end result is that he may stop writing software and move into another line of work. I know several people who are very capable authors but have given up programming and taken work in other areas of computing. COULD YOU SHARE YOUR OPINION ON DISKMAGAZINES WITH US ? I like DBA Mag, a lot of work goes into each issue and it shows. Unfortunately disk magazines don't tend to have such a big following as they should. In many cases the articles are as good (or better) than some of those in the glossies but the public just seem to prefer something on paper. I don't get much time to read disk mags (or paper based ones either) nowadays but my preferred choices are ST News, DBA Mag and STOSSER. Another good read used to be STEN. Pity they had to pack up. IT THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD LIKE TO MENTION TO OUR READERS ? Don't buy a PC, you'll live (or perhaps not) to regret it! ----------------------------------------------------------- Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.... ~BLEU.PAL~