1. Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from, how old are you, what's your name etc?

My name is Marc, I'm from a small town near Birmingham in the UK, and I'm 28.

2. What is your current hardware line up?

I emulate a lot using Steem on my Vista notebook, but at every opportunity I fire up my 1040stfm (2nd disk drive, 40mb HD, PeST - a life saver, Scart lead - acquired recently - how did I cope without it?). Would love to get my hands on a 4mb STE though (or maybe a Falcon or TT - keep dreaming :( )

3. When did you get your first ST?

Christmas 1989. Mum bought me the computer and I was overjoyed, playing Ranarama until noon when - as an extra surprise - she dropped 50 disks (all individually wrapped) full of crack compilations of games she got her friends husband to copy for me. My pirating started early! :D

4. Were you alone, stranded in a PC/Amiga universe?

No, my best friend and my Uncle both had STs. My friend and I would complete Bubble Bobble almost every time I visited his house. Me and my Uncle were all about marathon Championship Manager 93 sessions, usually lasting until dawn the next day.

5. What was the first ST game you played?

3 player Super Sprint at my friends 'ST party' - love at first sight.

6. Where did you get your games from in the early days?

Copies from my Mum's friend's husband, and mail order.

7. What else did you use your ST for?

Dabbled in lots of things. DTP, Music, Databases/Spreadsheets. Did some programming in STOS and a little C and assembly. But really enjoyed messing around with gfx in Degas Elite.

8. Why do you participate in STOT? What's the motivation?

Just a great excuse to spend some more time playing ST games. Also, it motivates you to spend more time with a game than you normally might, helping you discover some new gems along the way.

9. Are you happy with the games selected so far?

Yes, very.

10. What else are you interested in seeing in and/or from STOT?

More regular participation (from me!). Was great to see newly produced games being featured.

11. Let's imagine you are lost in an island, you, an ST with monitor, a solar power generator and 5 games.
Which ones would they be?

Dungeon Master (might finally get around to finishing it)
Elite II: Frontier (would never be able to explore everything, even if I was never rescued!)
Championship Manager 93 (already spent hundreds of hours on this, why not the rest of my life?)
IK+ (just because I love everything about this game, and score attacks never get old)
Civilization (no two games are the same, great challenge on higher difficulty settings - this will take a while to beat)

12. What is your favourite game genre?

Too hard to choose. A good game is a good game regardless of genre, though my tastes skew a little towards strategy titles (Civ, CM93, Sim City, Millenium 2.2)

13. What is your favourite modern game?

Oblivion for XBox 360. Mind-blowingly huge and open-ended.

14. Emulators or real hardware?

Err.. Can I say both? I love the convenience of emulation: Any game instantly at your fingertips, save-states, screengrabs, video-capture etc. But there is nothing like the real thing: The chugg-chugg-chugg of the drive, the solid dependability of a Zipstick, the natural anti-aliasing of a TV, the spongey response of the keyboard... I could go on forever.

15. Something else you would like to say?

Thanks very much to the organisers of STOT for giving us this opportunity to compete on the platform of champions: the Atari ST.