Profile of Colin Polonowski

Name:            Colin Josef Polonowski
Date of Birth:   21 December 1977        Age: 18

Atari Setup:     

My first computer was a Sinclair Spectrum which I got for Christmas in 1984
- it still amazes me how much could be achieved with just 48k!  I still
haven't seen any games which have more playability than some of the Speccy
ones (one of my favourites was Mastertronics Rescue). In fact I still play
on it sometimes!

I first got my STe back in 1989, it cost me œ350 and came with the Power
Pack software collection. Most of this software wasn't fully compatible!

Since then I have upgraded it steadily, my first major purchase was a Star
LC20 9 pin printer followed closely by an upgrade to 1 meg. Next followed
a SC1435 colour monitor to replace my TV, a new Canon BJ10sx Bubblejet
printer, a System Solutions Mini hard drive, SM124 Mono monitor and my
Reveal Fax Modem. Also during this time I upgraded my ST's memory, first
to 2 meg and then to 4.

I bought myself an Atari Lynx 2 in 1994 and a Jaguar in December 1995.

Favourite software:

My favourite piece of Atari software ever must be Papyrus. There is nothing
else on the ST which even comes close - it is even better than most PC and
Mac packages.

Another piece of software which deserves a mention is NVDI 3. It is a
remarkable piece of programming and I don't think I could live without it.

My favourite game at the moment has to be Microproses Civilization although
it is closely followed by Frontier and Obsession.

Out of the mountain of PD and Shareware software currently available, I'd
have to say both Kandinsky and Gemview.

Atari's main use:

When I first got my ST, I used it purely for playing games. It wasn't until
1991 that I decided to put it to more practicle use by programming some
software.

Since then I have written over twenty programs all of which are available
as PD, Freeware, Shareware or Licenceware. In 1996, I launched the Croft
Soft HTML News Letter (now The Atari Times) and the Atari Authors Association.

I spend most of my computing time now either writing stuff for the News
Letter, using Papyrus for typing various things and using the Bulletin
Board Networks.