STEVE DELANEY
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               INTERVIEW WITH STEVE DELANEY OF FLOPPYSHOP PDL
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                                                               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,

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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!

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Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.... 
~BLEU.PAL~
