The small bundle of assorted A&B companion discs available to download from www.8bs.com this time two months ago has now swelled to four times its size, with all programs from volumes 2, 3 and 4 of the Eighties' magazine compiled and error-checked. Appearing soon (hopefully!) will be discs from the only outstanding issues (Vol 1 No 1 to Vol 1 No 6); these will complete the archive of unseen BBC and Electron type-ins as, although A&B continued for some time after Vol 4 No 10, it became almost 100% Archimedes after this time.

Also now added to the 8BS website are two professional A&B discs: Colour Ikon, an art package for the BBC B only, and Murder At The Abbey, a very rich and atmospheric whodunnit text adventure set in the 1930s and compatible with B, B+, Master and Electron.

Just below the A&B section comes the EUG section, now boasting EUG discs #0 to #43/44 on both ADFS and DFS, all fully working with many missing files recovered from the original submission discs, new menus and vastly improved user interfaces. The mass entry into PD land of all of these discs, including the troublesome (as reported last issue) EUG #6 on disc, replaces the "one new back issue will appear per month" and leaves new BBC and Electron owners almost spoilt for choice by the hundred or so discs of 'new' software out there in cyberspace!

Isn't it bothersome to have to keep checking the news pages of StH, The BBC Lives, 8BS and EUG to keep abreast of all the latest developments and happenings in BBC-related circles? And imagine if the Acorn machines are only a few of the retro game platforms that interest you?

A new and promising looking web site - www.keepitretro.com - may be the collative web page with a handle on such a problem. Similar in style to the celebrated www.eopinions.com, this site allows anyone to post anything from snippets of news like the ones familiar to readers of this column, through to full reviews of new discs/games on any retro formats.

Happily, news submitted is vetted by a team before actually appearing on the site itself, indeed "keep"ing it based solely in retroland (Not becoming a noticeboard of help requests!). It has actually been around for over a year now but only recently gained linkage to the 8-bit Acorn sites mentioned earlier and only now beginning to receive input from them. Each news item appears in an attractive listing, spruced up with the appropriate Acorn, Spectrum, Amiga (,etc) logo so you can see at a glance whether there are any new articles related to your machine of preferance.

Although currently the webmaster is writing his own articles on any developments to the respected 8-bit Acorn sites, the hope is that this will change in the near future, with the Acorn sites actually issuing a 'Press Release' to KIR when changes occur. In this way, a glance at KIR each morning will notify viewers of any changes to any sites, instead of leaving them to tour each one by one.

Such is the ease of relying on this method that NEWS AND THE INTERNET itself may shortly be cribbed from material by cmj, catzeyez and Dave E which has earlier appeared on the KIR news page. And of course this would seem the ideal way to continue articles like news and reviews in the wake of EUG's fast-approaching last issue.

EUG HQ is clearing out of all duplicate hardware, software and magazines - including archive copies of the first #8 paper-based issues on paper. Currently in stock is one complete set of issues #0 to #8 plus three #7s and #8s. Unfortunately the time has come when even these rarities just have to go so please contact EUG if you are interested, making whatever offer you like on whatever issue(s). Even an offer of postage only will be readily accepted in default. It's preferable to them being binned.

Hardware and software will shortly be auctioned en masse via eBay.