There have not been a flood of submissions to EUG. Next issue will be the last. However, there will be a few readers who read through the contents of this particular issue and wonder why their particular game or demo has not been included. The answer, very simply, is that EUG #61 has been almost completely compiled for the past two months.

It became increasingly apparent back then that there were unlikely to be any further contributions. Why? Because all the Elk talking points had been exhausted and people were deserting EUG in their droves. At one point last year, it was argued EUG issues at this time of year should reflect the season. EUG #61 was compiled on that basis.

Therefore the vast majority of recent contributions, and any that arrive in the coming two months, will be squeezed onto EUG #62. If the squeeze really is going to leave anyone's masterpiece unseen, there will be a kind of overspill second disc sent out with EUG #62.

Only panic then, if it's not seen on the last disc. But it will be.

Electron archive material at www.8bs.com goes from strength to strength! Fed up with the lack of progress at Mark Usher's BBC Documentation Project, Chris Richardson has opened his own section of uploaded OCRed and typed manuals...and pretty impressive it is too. You can currently download documentation to accompany almost everything from the ultra-rare Jafa Mode 7 Display Unit to the ten-a-penny Slogger Expansion 2.0.

What's nice to see is that all of these files come not simply as pure ASCII but as Word files, using the common fonts to avoid compatibility problems with different versions of Microsoft Word. Collectors of the genuine articles (including the genuine manuals) may, of course, consider this unnecessary. But there are very real advantages to having a downloaded (and printed out) manual over using the original.

It allows dabblers to anotate their copies to their hearts' content without defacing the original; it allows any second hand buyers unlucky enough to have picked up manual-less Electron addons to experiment with them and, particularly in relation to the Slogger user guides, it provides a much easier on the eye alternative than the faded dot-matrix jobs printed directly at the time.

There's also some invaluable information for the archivist in the form of the 1993 Slogger catalogue. The games' enthusiast is also catered for with a correctly formatted (to bypass the protection) Exile Novella and the complete guide to The Quill by Gilsoft.

Rather a lack of news on the BBC and Electron front this EUG as Stairway To Hell remains exactly as it was two, no three, months ago. The indications are though that this is not an ominous prelude to decline. On the contrary, everything points to very big things on the horizon...