"Why does one park in a driveway and drive on a parkway?"
THE FIFTH AND LAST OF
THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE DISK MAGAZINE ROUNDUPS!
Part 2: "Erotica" to "RTS Track"
by Richard Karsmakers
Erotica
A new defunct American porn magazine with a mediocre ST medium-
res shell, offering nudy pics, sex-phone stories and vibrator-and
sex book-reviews.
Status: Pubic Domain.
User interface: Yes, GEM oriented thingy.
Latest known issue: 2.
Address: Irrelevant.
Health: Died during The Act.
Language: English.
E-Scape
Released by InterInk Publishing Co., "E-Scape" is a digital
journal of speculative fiction, or at least that's the way it
describes itself. Contact person (and editor?) is J. Patrick
McDonald. The first issue was released in September 1995, which
even featured a tale from Hugo-nominated Lee Killough (cor!). It
is not mailed out or anything, but can be acquired either in
Acrobat Portable Document format (PDF) or seen as HTML on the
World Wide Web (http://www.interink.com/).
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: None.
Latest known issue: Volume 1 Issue 2 (January 1996).
Address: InterInk Publishing Co., 1228 Westloop #356, Manhattan,
Kansas 66502, USA. Email jpm@interink.com.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
Eye on Scene
When "Massive Mag" (Cf.) folded, some of the members of the
Admirables went on to do "Eye on Scene". It's a magazine aimed
primarily at the ST/E, though there is also Falcon coverage. It
works on all systems, anyway.
It's supposed to have a really good shell, it's "different from
the regular diskmag scene" and it's done by Tommi Koistinen,
a.k.a. Nirvana of the Admirables. The first issue was released
around the end of 1994.
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: A custom one, supposed to be good.
Latest known issue: Issue 2 (spring or summer 1995).
Address: Kotimaenkuja 2, 27230 Lappi TL, Finland.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
Fair Play
A disk magazine that I only read something about. No details are
known, but the user interface is said to be crap, the articles
few (something like 10) and its directory scattered (source: "RTS
Track").
Falcon Magazine
A weekly but unfortunately rather short-lived disk magazine
especially for the Falcon. The first issue came out on June 28th
1993. Its editor was Jos van Roosmalen. The first two issues were
text files on disk, less than 50 Kb in size, and the rest of the
disk was filled with various source material and programs. It is
a shame that this magazine ceased to exist so quickly, because it
was a most excellent way to get the best from your Falcon, even
though it was written in Dutch. Issue 3 (mid July) saw the
introduction of a GEM interface, but it was very sloppy (though
"MultiTOS" compatible!).
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: No.
Latest known issue: Issue 3.
Address: Not important.
Health: Dead.
Language: Dutch.
Falcon Update Digital
A Falcon magazine that, as of issue 6, has a Falcon specific
shell that incorporates such nifty things as 256 colour FLI
animation, picture display (GIF, TARGA, IFF and RAW), DSP-
replayed modules, multiple text windows open, and compatibility
with "NVDI", "MultiTOS", VGA, RGB and any TOS 4.xx. It's not as
perfect as it sounds, but a good and sizeable magazine
nonetheless. Needs 1 Mb to run, but also needs a hard drive!
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: Yes, an insanely hyper one.
Latest known issue: Issue 9 (mid 1995).
Address: Not known.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
F.A.S.T.E.R.
The magazine that started everything with regard to a neat user
interface - one of the very earliest ST disk magazines, having
started somewhere in the autumn of 1986. It was Canadian of
origin, and I seem to recall that some of the earliest issues had
a set of English articles and their copies in French. Later
issues were English only. They were the first that had a user
interface, and they survived only a bit more than a year -
probably because they were commercial, which tends to make things
more complicated than they need be . Last known issue was Volume
2 Issue 4, and I'm pretty sure that's the final one too.
The "F.A.S.T.E.R." user group still lives on, so it seems.
Status: Commercial.
User interface: Yes. A custom one (the first one).
Latest known issue: Volume 2 Issue 4.
Address: No longer relevant.
Health: Dead.
Language: Used to be French and English. Later issues were only
in English.
Fiction Online
This magazine was launched in spring 1994 and features short
stories, chapters of novels, acts of plays and poems. Initial
contributors are associated with the Northwest Fiction Writers
Group of Washington, DC. It will also publish works by other
authors and welcomes submissions from the public. The editor is
William (Bill) Ramsay.
Status: Public Domain, on-line.
User interface: None.
Latest known issue: Volume 3 Issue 4 (July/August 1996, the 13th
issue).
Address: Email ngwazi@clark.net.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
FSFNet
This was the forerunner to "DargonZine" (Cf.). It has in the
mean time ceased publication. A total of 11 issues appeared under
editorship of "Orny" Liscomb until 1988. No hands-on experience.
Status: Public Domain, on-line.
User interface: No.
Latest known issue: Volume 8 Issue 3.
Address: Not relevant.
Health: Dead.
Language: English.
Funhouse
This is, hold on, "the cyberzine of degenerate pop culture". It
started in March 1993, and is written and edited by Jeff Dove. It
covers a wide variety of topics, some of which are music reviews,
concert reports, and books examined. A most excellent online
magazine, and don't let the name fool you into thinking they're
not at least halfway seriously interesting.
Status: Public Domain, on-line.
User interface: No.
Latest known issue: Volume 1 Issue 5 (October 20th 1994).
Address: Email jeffdove@well.sf.ca.us.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
G.D.I.
A Spanish true multi-format (ST/Amiga/PC) magazine, primarily
written in Spanish, too, but with some articles in English. It
works on any ST/TT/Falcon, actually, including multi-tasking
operating systems. It uses a kind of "hypertext" interface where
you can click on indices causing sublists and, eventually,
articles to be loaded. Actual content cannot quality can't be
judged due to limited understanding of Spanish in yours truly.
The first issue was released on March 12th 1994.
G.D.I. stands for Grupo de Desarrollo Informatico, by the bye.
Status: Public Domain, on-line.
User interface: Yes, a custom one.
Latest known issue: Issue 2.
Address: Email gdi@dtc.uvigo.es or gdi@ait.uvigo.es.
Health: Alive.
Language: Spanish, with some wee bits of English.
GEnieLamp Atari ST
This is the resource magazine covering the Genie (BBS system) ST
RoundTable. It offers all information that could otherwise be
found on Genie, comprising an enormous amount of up-to-date
information. It is released monthly (on the 1st of each month) in
ASCII format, but a special version is available for the TX2
reader software (featuring graphics). The first issue was
published in June 1990. There have been a few months in its
existence in which two issues have been released. It is published
by T/TalkNET, and the editor is Sheldon (previously Bruce
Faulkner). There are "GEnieLamp" magazines covering Amiga, PC and
MacIntosh as well.
Status: Public Domain, on-line.
User interface: No.
Latest known issue: Issue 84 (September 1995).
Address: Email gelamp.st@genie.geis.com.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
GRIST On-Line
This is a journal of electronic network poetry, art and culture.
It's eclectic, and will be open to all the language and visual
art forms that develop on the net. It's an ASCII text file edited
by John Fowler.
Status: Public Domain, on-line.
User interface: None.
Latest known issue: Not known.
Address: Columbus Circle Sta., P.O. Box 20805, New York, NY
10023-1496, USA, email fowler@phantom.com.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
Guildsman, The
This is yet another modem magazine spread as text file, this
time being the Journal of Gamers' Guild of UCR. It is devoted to
role-playing games and amateur fantasy/SF fiction.
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: None.
Latest known issue: Not known.
Address: Not known.
Health: Probably alive.
Language: English.
Holy Temple of Mass Consumption
A trendy pseudo-whatever online magazine featuring comic
reviews, zine list, humour and a load of more stuff. I guess it's
stuff you have to read if you're in any way telling other people
you're on the net or being "into things" in general. What a crap
description, but what a heck.
Status: Public Domain, on-line.
User interface: None.
Latest known issue: Issue #31, February 1996.
Address: P.O. Box 30904, Raleigh, NC 27622-0904, USA; email
slack@ncsu.edu.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
HotFlash
"Wired" is a regular paper cyber/network/whatever magazine in
the United States that's incredibly cult and trendy and loads of
other good adjectives (including "yuppie", according to its
adversaries). To stay in touch with what it is doing and get a
weekly news mailing, "HotFlash" is the thing to subscribe to.
Subscribe by sending a message containing "subscribe hotwire" to
the email address mentioned below. Despite the general
uninteresting contents, it now has almost 150,000 subscribers.
For help, send "help" instead of the message mentioned earlier.
End your message with "end".
With this mail server it is easy to get the full back issues of
the real "Wired" magazine too - all you have to do is get all
individial articles and glue them together. And the actual
"Wired" is to computer/cyberspace hobbyists and all
intelligent beings what "Atari Explorer Online" is to Atari
phreaks.
Until Volume 1 Issue 22, "HotFlash" was called "HotWired" (Cf.).
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: None.
Latest known issue: Volume 3 Issue 26 (May 24th 1996).
Address: Email Info-rama@wired.com.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
HotWired
Until Volume 1 Issue 22, this used to be the name of what is now
"HotFlash" (Cf.). Now it's the interactive "Wired" on-line World
Wide Web location name or something.
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: None.
Latest known issue: Volume 1 Issue 22 (September 23rd 1994).
Address: Not relevant.
Health: Became another medium; dead but reincarnated.
Language: English.
How to Code
A virtually Falcon-specific coding magazine, really hot on the
heels of the latest programming tricks with regard to DSP, MPEG
playing, GIF display and all that stuff. Of limited appeal to the
layman, of course, but all the more interesting for Those Who Are
In The Know. The articles come in French and English. It has
official distributors around the globe (it is shareware), which
will not be listed here, though. It is done by members of EKO,
really famous French Falcon demo programmers.
Status: Shareware (costs 50 French Francs, and to give you an
idea of what that is, the UK distributor asks £7.50).
User interface: A neat custom one. There's one for the Falcon
and one GEM-friendly one that'll work as ACC or PRG.
Latest known issue: Issue 3 (summer 1995 or thereabouts).
Address: Alexis Naibo, 63 Rue des Cigognes, F-31520, Ramonville,
France.
Health: Alive.
Language: French and English.
HP Source
A disk magazine that (also) payed attention to STOS programming,
the successor to "STOS Bits" (Cf.). It also payed attention to
"GfA Basic" and assembler, and had a much neater user interface
than its predecessor. The editor, Leon O'Reilly, decided to call
it quits after issue 2 as he considered it wasn't perfect enough.
Rumours have it that it was intended as sortof an undead "Maggie"
(Cf.) but "Maggie" suddenly went undead all on its own so there.
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: Yes, a custom one.
Latest known issue: Issue 2 (released at Ripped Off Convention
1992).
Address: Not relevant.
Health: Dead.
Language: English.
ICTARI
According to an ad I read somewhere: "Are you an Atari
programmer? It does not matter which language you use, whether it
be STOS, assembler, C, or whatever takes your fancy, you nee
ICTARI, the Atari ST Programmer's Disk Magazine." Features
sources and ideas for novices and experts alike. An issue is
released on every 15th of the month, which I think is quite a
feat. I've got no hands-on experience, but it's supposed to be
quite good. The disk magazine is a publication of the "The ICTARI
programmer's user group", which started in March 1993. Except for
a small gap in 1993 - when the editor was changed - the mag has
been released regularly. The group's membership is free; all you
pay is the postage for the issues that get sent to you, and send
them the disks for it.
Status: Public Domain, sortof.
User interface: No. Just use the desktop or a text displayer.
Latest known issue: Issue 26 (September 15th 1995).
Address: ICTARI, The ATARI Programmer's User Group, c/o Peter
Hibbs, 63 Woolsbridge Road, Ringwood, Hants., BH24 2LX,
England.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
Inc Magazine
A disk mag offered by the Incoders, a demo crew from Sweden.
Made by a bunch of real enthusiasts, but once said (I quote) to
have "the effect of a bunch of schoolkids leaping up and down"
(source: "STEN" disk magazine roundup). Articles were short and
its appeal was limited. One of its writers, one Mr. Cool, went on
to "DBA Magazine" after "Inc Magazine" folded.
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: Yes, a custom one.
Latest known issue: Not known.
Address: Not relevant.
Health: Dead.
Language: English.
Indy Magazine
In mid 1994, the latest hot thing, presumably with monthly
intent. Little is known about it, however, at current, other than
that it is released by a union of German crews calling themselves
Independent (some 70 people in total, with some excellent
graphics persons).
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: Probably yes.
Latest known issue: Rumoured issue 4.
Address: Unknown.
Health: Alive.
Language: Most likely to be German.
Inside Info
A bi-monthly disk magazine published by the New South Wales
section of "ACE" (Atari Computer Enthusiasts). It's basically a
magazine for members, so it includes meeting minutes and stuff
like that. Looks OK, especially if you want to stay in touch with
down under. Has a good shell, but you have to wade through a bit
too much before you can get down to the actual reading.
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: Yes, the "Infodisk" shell.
Latest known issue: Issue 76 (summer 1995).
Address: 20 Blairgourie Circuit, St. Andrews, NSW 2556,
Australia.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
InSoft Disk Newsletter
A US disk magazine. Nothing is known about the amount of issues
that have appeared, and not even if the only issue of which
notice was made (an August 1986 one) was indeed the first one.
Status: Probably Public Domain.
User interface: Probably. Not certainly.
Latest known issue: Not known.
Address: Irrelevant.
Health: Dead and decomposing.
Language: English.
Interaction
This magazine is best described by quoting a bit from it: "As a
first issue, this is an experimental and reduced version of what
Intercation aims to be. Computers are everywhere, and so is art,
but few are the time we see them in combination." And
"Interaction" tries to be a collaboration between the two. I
haven't seen it myself yet. It's also available for Amiga and PC,
and used to be a paper magazine before it entered the digital
realm.
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: Yes, a fairly simple but effective plain text
displayer shell.
Latest issue: Issue 1.
Address: Not known.
Health: Getting there, alive.
Language: English.
Interleave
A rather excellent disk magazine with literary tendencies that,
unfortunately, folded after two cult issues that appeared in
1991. Its editor was Tom Zunder, who filled the mag with
"software, music, films and sex". What more would one want? Tom
continued writing for "STEN" (Cf.) and "ST NEWS" (Cf.) for a
while, but was never heard of afterwards.
Status: Licenceware.
User interface: The S.A.N.D. shell.
Latest known issue: Number 2.
Address: Not relevant.
Health: Dead.
Language: English.
InterText - An Electronic Fiction Digest
Like its predecessor, "Athena" (Cf.), this magazine is devoted
to publishing fiction - lots of it. It's a network magazine
edited by Jason Snell, and has so far come out bi-monthly (except
for four month gaps between V1N1 (March 1991) and V1N2 (July
1991). The first issue was released around March 1991. It's a
rather excellent magazine, capably edited and all.
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: None.
Latest known issue: Volume 6 Issue 4 (July/August 1996, the 31st
issue).
Address: 21645 Parrotts Ferry Road, Sonora, CA 95370, USA. Email
jsnell@intertext.com.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
Jag!
"Jag!" is an on-line Jaguar-dedicated magazine in German. I am
not sure when it started exactly, but probably around the end of
1993 or in January 1994. Half of it is about Jaguar game reviews
and all kinds of interesting stuff, the other half consists of
advertisements. It's released every two weeks, and its editor is
Carsten Nipkow.
Status: Publis Domain, on-line.
User interface: None.
Latest known issue: 3/94 (February 1994).
Address: An der Ruthe 9, D-58791 Werdohl, Germany.
Health: Alive.
Language: German.
Lavarush
Unfortunately not much is known about this disk magazine, as I
only found half an ad of it (in the now long defunct English
"Zero" glossy magazine), of which I'll share the text with you:
"Lavarush, new ST diskzine for everyone with computer reviews,
features, music, films,"...
And, indeed, that's where it stopped. More info seriously
needed.
Ledgers Magazine
This was the demo group "Untouchables" disk magazine. It was
very enthusiastic and full of humour (and indeed, seemed to
consist primarily of it). Featured short articles, but many of
them. One of the better and definitely one of the most zany disk
magazines around. Their user interface used to be a GEM pull-down
menu but later became a mega-demo-like playfield with selectable
bunches of articles as opposed to demo screens. The editor and
chief coder was Matt Sullivan. Neat intros. Colour only. They
seemed to appear about every month, which was quite a feat!
Status: Used to be licenceware, but shareware as of issue 9.
Costs £3.
User interface: Yes. A fully custom one. It differs per issue.
Latest known issue: Issue 13 (September 1992).
Address: Not relevant.
Health: Dead. Sometimes there's a tiny rumour of life, though,
no matter how ill-placed, for they are truly deceased.
Language: English.
Leic ST
This is a magazine that I have no personal experience with, but
it's said to be extremely crap; basically about 5 Kb of text with
the rest of the disk filled with PD. It appears to be monthly,
though this is not certain, and doesn't really classify as a disk
magazine actually.
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: Yes, the "ST Zine" PD one.
Latest known issue: Issue 26.
Address: Not known.
Health: Alive?
Language: English.
Lowell Review - Online, The
An annual fiction/poetry/essays paper magazine initiated by Rita
"Core" (Cf.) Rouvalis. It's pretty much in the same vein as
"Core", only a lot bigger. The "Online" bit is basically just a
teaser for the real thing that is a lot bigger.
Status: Public Domain, on-line.
User interface: No.
Latest known issue: 1994 issue.
Address: Instant Karma Press, P.O. Box 632, Vienna, Ohio 44473,
USA. Email rita@etext.org.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
Maggie
Having started in June 1990, "Maggie" (or "Disk Maggie") quickly
became one of the very best ST disk magazines. It was initiated
by the British Lost Boys and at the time almost entirely written
by Michael Schussler (a German guy living in England). As of
issue 8, when Michael joined the Delta Force, they became
unbelievably much better, with a totally slick menu, much better
music, picture and a fast page viewer. A quality turnpoint came
in 1993 when, with the release of issue 11, "Maggie" turned out
to have been taken over by some British guys lead by the editor,
Chris "CIH" Holland. All the good bits previously present were
now complemented with much better writing, a healthy dose of
enthusiasm and, lacking completely before that, wit. It also
worked on the Falcon, though with the lustrum issue of August
1995 (issue 18) they started releasing separate disks for ST
(with the old shell and ST goodies) and Falcon (HD disk with
fancy mod, more colours and Falcon goodies). The Falcon shell was
coded by the talented Reservoir Gods.
"Maggie" tries (though fails) to be bi-monthly. Remarkably, it
works on colour as well as monochrome.
After Issue 16, a special "Maggie's Guide to Classic Consoles"
issue was released. Although done with the "Maggie" ST shell
(kind thanks to Chris), it has nothing further to do with
"Maggie" at all, and was done by Reservoir Gods. Nice for old
console freaks, though (as in Colecovision, Vectrex, Atari 2600
and the like).
Status: Licenceware (up to and including issue 10), Public
Domain (later issues).
User interface: Yes. Crap up to 7, after that really nice and
custom. Seperate user interfaces for ST and Falcon as of issue
18.
Latest known issue: Number 20 (July 7th 1996).
Address: 84 North Street, Rushden, Northants NN10 9BU, UK.
Health: Alive.
Language: Previously (<issue 11) English with some German, now
only English.
Magnum
A Polish disk magazine made by the group Illusions (or Warriors
of Darkness; maybe they have several names). The first issue, "0"
promotion issue, was released around May/June of 1992. Its
articles were rather short and few, displayed in 40-column mode.
Only colour monitors were supported. It had a custom user
interface where the cursor keys lead you through the various
options and the space bar selected them. You had several menu
screens. The music was in tracker .MOD format, and was quite
excellent. There were several modules in each issue.
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: A custom one. Not too excellent, not too bad
either.
Latest known issue: Issue 3 (fourth issue, November/December
1992)
Address: No longer relevant.
Health: Dead.
Language: Polish.
Massive Mag
A Finnish disk magazine with a demo'n'hacking atmosphere. Nice
music (some of it ripped), nice demos, nice graphics. Quite a lot
of stuff was offered, among which also quite a load of articles.
The editor was Claff Moron of the Admirables. It died around the
middle of 1994.
In earlier versions of this disk magazine roundup it was also
called "Admirabels Mag". That magazine actually never existed,
and was "Massive Mag" actually.
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: Yes. A custom one. Quite slow.
Latest known issue: Number 4. Issue 5 was made but never
released.
Address: Not relevant.
Health: Dead.
Language: English.
MAST Newsdisk
In 1988, ex-US distributor of "ST NEWS" (Cf.) David Meile
started his own disk magazine with the MAST user group ("MAST"
was "Massuchusetts Atari ST" user group). It was called "MAST
Newsdisk", of which only two issues are known to have been
released (the last one in April 1988). It used the "Newsdisk"
shell program. After this magazine sortof ceased, suddenly
nothing was heard of David (he got married somewhere, I believe)
and "ST NEWS" had to look for another US distribution channel.
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: Yes. The "Newsdisk" shell.
Latest known issue: Number 2.
Address: Not relevant.
Health: Dead.
Language: English.
NASA Mag
This disk magazine, of which little is known except for the
fact that at least one issue appeared, and that it is written in
French and English. It might be dead, it might be alive. More
information required.
News Channel
A fellow Dutch disk magazine that arose somewhere in 1987 and
survived a bit over 1 year. Somewhat notorious for its mainly
polemic battle with ST NEWS - mainly concerning them using their
authors, their music and their foreign distributor network.
For a while, some of the people behind "News Channel" seemed
to be getting back in the picture with "STabloid" (Cf.).
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: Yes. A custom one.
Latest known issue: Volume 2 Issue 1.
Address: No longer relevant.
Health: Dead.
Language: English.
News Flash
This is a disk magazine "in utero", as Nirvanians would have it.
The first issue is/was planned for autumn 1995, so we'll just see
what comes of it. It's made by the crew Flash, from Finland. The
main head editor honcho seems to be Juha Vihriala.
Status: Public domain.
User interface: It's bound to have a custom one.
Latest known issue: None yet.
Address: Eljaksentie 6, 62800 Vimpeli, Finland.
Health: In utero, most likely.
Language: English?
Remark: "Eljaksentie" means "Road where moose cross".
Nova
"Nova" is an Atari ST disk magazine, non-profit, released for
the first time around spring of 1994. It's dedicated to
"Trekkies", i.e. fans of the "Star Trek" films/series and stuff
like that. The latest issue can be obtained by sending a disk and
one pound plus SAE (or IRCs if you live outside England) to James
Bird (who is the editor) at the below address.
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: Unknown.
Latest known issue: Issue 8.
Address: 91 Elm tree Avenue, Kilburn, Belper, Derby, DE56 0NN,
England.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
Nutworks
Available through US networks, this was a multi-format on-line
disk magazine which concentrates on stories, jokes, songs and
everything you might care to think of. As they said, it's "a
virtual magazine for people who teeter on the precipe of
insanity". Not particularly computer-related. It started in
January 1985, and the last reported issue was 1988's Volume 26.
Much of its material finds its way into the humorous bits of
other disk magazines today. It was moderated by Joe Desbonnet.
Status: Public Domain, on-line.
User interface: No.
Latest known issue: Volume (issue) 26.
Address: Not relevant.
Health: Dead.
Language: English.
Omphalos
A science fiction review magazine edited by John R.R. Leavitt,
released on-line on quarterly basis. Paper editions are
available, though you have to pay for those of course. The good
thing about these paper editions is that they have artwork. It
covers books primarily, but also spends attention to games, TV,
magazines and films (all of them reviews). It's available in
ASCII, Postscript and Hypertext formats. Paper issue subscription
are US$ 12 for a year (i.e. four issues).
Status: Public Domain, on-line.
User interface: No.
Latest known issue: The first issue, Spring (May) 1994.
Address: 5715 Ellsworth Avenue D-2, Pittsburgh, PA 15232, USA,
or email jrrl@cs.cmu.edu.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
ON-Disk
A British disk magazine by Paul Wilson. Last known issue was
number 3, that appeared spring 1988. The program had quite an
unintuitive and buggy user interface, but the editorial contents
were OK.
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: Yes. A custom one that was not too good.
Latest known issue: Not certain, but probably number 3.
Address: Not relevant.
Health: Dead.
Language: English.
Power Disk Magazine
Started as a monthly (!) shareware disk magazine run by James L.
Mathews (who is very young, 13 at the start of the magazine early
1993). It uses a STOS-based shell, I believe, and it is supposed
to work on any TOS 1.xx, though not on that of the Falcon.
Although the editorial staff thinks highly of itself and its
efforts, it's just another good disk magazine really. At start it
has a lot (like, 100) articles that were very small (like, 3.5 Kb
on average), but articles are getting less and longer. As of
issue 23, texts are stored compressed and the user interface has
been overhauled. As of that issue, mono compatibility was
provided, though Falcon compatibility still seems a long way off.
Around issue 25 it became bi-monthly.
It has changed status a few times and is currently shareware.
Registering will award you with a password that will give access
to competition entry, bonus prizes and discounts at Power PD.
Status: Public Domain from issues 1 to 7. Power Licenceware from
issue 8 to 15 (costs £2.50 per issue including disk and p&p).
Shareware as of issue 16 of May 1994 (£1 to £1.50 registration
fee to cover running costs).
User interface: Yes, an OK but rather slow STOS one.
Latest known issue: Issue 26 (May 1995).
Address: 3 Salisbury Road, Maidstone, Kent ME14 2TY, England.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
Pure Bollocks
A strictly underground magazine, with rather controversial
contents. Articles are peppered with obscenities (and the demos
with naughty piccies), and it's very coder-oriented. Among
others, this magazine features "how to" articles on cracking
digital locks, hacking answerphones and American Pirate BBS phone
numbers. Lots of it comes from various sources "on the net". It's
Scottish, and started with Issue 21, January 17th 1993. Spring
1995 saw them recoding their shell for future use.
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: Yes, a very flashy smooth one. Very original.
Latest known issue: Issue 23 (September 18th 1993).
Address: P.O. Box 1083, Glasgow G14 9DG, Scotland, UK. A support
page on the WWW is http://www.gla.ac.uk/~895822ja/pb/.
Health: Alive, but being reprogrammed and lacking writers so, in
their words, "alive but a little sleepy" (which might be a most
tremendous understatement).
Language: English.
Quanta
A multi-format on-line magazine that concentrates solely on the
publication of fiction. And quite excellent fiction, one might
want to add. It was founded in 1989 by editor Daniel K.
Appelquist. Not much to be said about it. It's just actually very
good. No more. No less. It goes out to over 3,000 subscribers,
making it very big.
Status: Public Domain, on-line.
User interface: No.
Latest known issue: July 1995.
Address: 3003 Van Ness St. NW #S919, Washington D.C. 20008, USA,
or email quanta@netcom.com.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
Quantum Underground Anarchic Reading Konspiracy (QUARK)
An English disk magazine available on ST, Amiga, PC and Amstrad
CPC formats. Basically it's made by Pete Binsley and two friends
across these formats. Concentrates on fiction only, but has a
user interface. Quite small - their debut issue took up only 150
Kb in space (the program plus about two dozen uncompressed short
stories and the like).
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: Yes. A rather basic one.
Latest known issue: One (September 1992).
Address: 52 Avis Road, Denton, Newhaven, East Sussex BN9 0PN,
England.
Health: Alive?
Language: English.
Quast
A Polish disk magazine put together by the Quast group, in
Poland. Nothing much is known about it, other than that it
exists.
Status: Not known.
User interface: Not known.
Latest known issue: Not known, but one should guess at least 1.
Address: Ul. Niecala 3, 89-100 Naklo.
Health: Alive.
Language: Not known.
Remark: The 'l' in Niecala and Naklo is actually no 'l', but an
'l' with a capital 'L' written across it with the vertical bit
slanted to the right, so 'l' and 'L' written on top of each
other. That's Polish for you!
Random Access Humor
This is an electronic humour magazine, a rag-tag collection of
fugitive humour, some of which is vaguely related to the
BBS/Online System world. The editor is Dave Bealer. It started in
September 1992 on a monthly basis, but as of 1994 is started a
10-month schedule (issues out each month outside July and
August). Each issue is available ZIPped as well as uncompressed,
and as of 1993's issue 2 it's also available in a Tearoom BBS
Door version (whatever that may mean, probably something MS-
DOS-y).
Status: Public Domain, online.
User interface: No.
Latest known issue: Volume 1 Release B, February 1995.
Address: P.O. Box 595, Pasadena, MD 21122, USA, email
dbealer@rah.clark.net.
Health: Alive.
Language: English.
RTS Track
A smoothly looking disk magazine from the Netherlands. The first
three issues (all released in 1992) were in Dutch, but after
that it switched to English. Like "Maggie" and "DBA" (Cf.) it's
fairly demo-oriented, although the crew that makes it stresses
not to be a demo crew. This is possible caused by the main menu
appearance: A bit like a megademo but still managable. About 40
were present in Volume 2 Issue 1, some of which contained
graphics as well (medium resolution text with low resolution
pictures - pretty slick!). Issue 2.1 came on two disks, the
second one containing a load of shareware utilities also written
by RTS, the crew that releases the magazine. The editor was Ferdy
Blaset. The 2.1 program was not fully Falcon compatible but you
can get access to everything but the intro, and the low res pics
in the text flicker a bit.
After Volume 2 Issue 1 the editor's ST broke down and lack of
funds and support for "RTS Track" have caused the magazine to
cease publication.
Status: Public Domain.
User interface: Yes, quite an excellent one.
Latest known issue: Volume 2 Issue 1.
Address: Halleyweg 114, NL-3318 CP, Dordrecht, Netherlands.
Health: Comatose, most likely dead.
Language: Used to be Dutch (Volume 1), after that English.
Disclaimer
The text of the articles is identical to the originals like they appeared
in old ST NEWS issues. Please take into consideration that the author(s)
was (were) a lot younger and less responsible back then. So bad jokes,
bad English, youthful arrogance, insults, bravura, over-crediting and
tastelessness should be taken with at least a grain of salt. Any contact
and/or payment information, as well as deadlines/release dates of any
kind should be regarded as outdated. Due to the fact that these pages are
not actually contained in an Atari executable here, references to scroll
texts, featured demo screens and hidden articles may also be irrelevant.