I cannot begin to count the number of subtle and overt hints I have received that this issue is by far the most tardy APJ release to date. Quite a few projects have conspired to steal my time away, from Linux essays to disassembler coding to reverse engineering a hardware/software combo thrown together by a madman bent on carrying the technology to his grave. Enough to say, though, that the issue is finally ready for distribution. Not only that, but I actually have about four article left over --including Part II of the ASM Gaming series-- to include in APJ 9.

The articles in this issue encompass a wide range of topics, from customizing the LCC compiler to programming games in asm. Randall Hyde, who I'm sure needs no introduction to assembly coders, has provided an excellent article discussing the teaching of assembly language, and how he developed HLA to assist. Chili has done a fair amount of work as well, working on everything from CPU identification and exception handling to preparing an online gaming article for ASCII publication.

X-Calibre has provided two complete programming packages, one for exception handling and one for converting 64-bit integers; an introductory COM article which further demystifies COM has been provided by Ernest Murphy. The Unix camp is doubly represented this month, with an introduction to FreeBSD assembly language [using NASM, of course] and my linux article deferred from the previous issue. Capping everything off is a quick challenge and solution provided by Angel Tsankov.

It has been suggested to me many times during the Time Of No Issues that I should acquire a staff for ensuring that the issues get out on time. I am open to suggestions in this area; anyone willing to volunteer their time on a regular basis is welcome to contact me. Ideally, the mag should have a staff that solicits articles [hint IRC hint], tests the code in each article, and edits the articles to enforce formatting [80 col, 3sp tab] and commenting standards. To date I've been doing the last one only, and as is readily apparent I put it off as long as possible.

Another note, regarding mirrors. Translation of the APJ issues is perfectly acceptable and highly encouraged; all I request is an email giving the URL so I can link to it from the main page. I should point out that the individual articles, once removed from the context of the APJ issue, are the property of their individual authors, so contact them before 'repackaging'. Regarding formatting, I have also received a few requests to reformat APJ in HTML or another markup language to make reading and browsing easier. This I will not do, for it makes APJ less portable and causes problems copying code from the magazine to a source file. I have been working on syntax highlighting/tag files for vi and nedit; I will post these and any user-contributed translation files [e.g. APJ_to_HTML] on the main APJ website.

All pleading and excuses aside, issue 8 is now put to bed, and issue 9 will be out faster than you can recite GNU's license agreement. Enjoy the mag...

_m