Today I received from FedEx a package from Florida USA. A kind soul and Tornado friend named Mike sent it to me as a gift. I enjoyed opening the Tornado package and lifting out the box and its contents.
Joy is holding the original UK 1993 Tornado box in my hands!
Double joy is seeing the original Digital Integration Tornado manual.
Triple joy is seeing the original Spectrum Holobyte Tornado manual. Now I have a spare!
Quadruple joy is seeing the Keyboard Commander Tornado keyboard template
Quintuple joy is seeing the supercrisp full-size double-sided maps
Sextuple joy is seeing the original 3.5" disks and head-to-head guides
Septuple joy is seeing the Tornado Flightplan form just itching to be photocopied and filled in by hand with a pencil
(http://www.moodurian.com/tornado/images/boxset-tornado.png)
The treasure chest
The keyboard template - what a beautiful of art it is! I can immediately see how much it transforms a standard boring keyboard into a colourful game station, specific to the game! That makes me want to drop by the PC repair shop and see if I can get a 1990s keyboard (and a PS/2 to USB convertor) so I can play the game it all its glory. A template like this would have increased the game's enjoyment. It would make the keyboard feel like a cockpit. In 1993/1994, the number of Tornado keys would have been daunting for the average gamer. The template acts to demystify the (then) huge key command list and to abstract the keyboard commands into key imagery.
With this piece of gaming history in my hands, plus the source code which I can modify, it is Tornado all the way.