DISKZINES



Some of you will be familiar with disk magazines on the Atari platform,
having seen them on sale in various public domain libraries. This section
of Atari Computing is going to feature the best of the articles that have
been included in Maggie over the last six years or so that this disk
magazine has been in existence.
Disk magazines have a chequered history, and Maggie is no exception,
however, more recently, we have featured better articles as more
experienced people from the Atari scene have started to write for us.

Some of our writers will be familiar to you, including: Richard
Karsmakers, the author of Utimate Virus Killer (UVK) and editor of ST
News, Sietse Postma, ex-DBA disk mag) and Michael Noyce of ST News.

We all have interests outside the Atari scene and Maggie has diversified
to include reviews of movies, CDs and so on. Naturally in these pages
we're only featuring Atari specific articles so why not browse a copy of
Maggie at your leisure?

We're hoping after reading the articles printed here, you'll become a
regular reader. Since issue 18 Maggie comes with separate Falcon and ST
shells, so make sure you get the correct version for your machine. Maggie
is available from most PD/Shareware libraries and on-line from 42BBS. If
you have internet access check out our pages:
Maggie on line
We hope you enjoy reading this selection of articles.
Richard Spowart and Chris Holland, Maggie Team

Richard and Chris



The Lazer coding crew

The lazer coding crew are arguably the best Falcon demo coding crew
around. Maggie is delighted to present an interview with Harald
Riegler, aka "Energizer" from Lazer...

First of all thanks for squeezing this interview in between your
studies, to kick off please tell us a bit about yourself and your role
within Lazer?
is Harald Riegler, I'm 22 years old, studying electrical engineering in
Austria.>

Not all members of Lazer live in the same country. How did you manage
to create the marvellous "Lost Blubb" demo -it seems to me you would
need to meet occasionally ...

else lives near to each other around Vienna. We do get together often,
even when we're not doing computer stuff. During the period when we
were finishing Lost Blubb all of us, except Dan, "lived" at Photon's
place for a couple of weeks!>

How long did it take to create Lost Blubb and whose idea was it in the
first place?

design it, but Martina wouldn't let us. :(>

I'm sure you heard Lost Blubb was shown on American television in a
show called "World of Demos". Some of the people who saw this show were
very impressed with your production. Apart from being fun, was Lost
Blubb intended as a promotional demo, maybe with a view to getting a
job?

mail from companies offering us jobs to come in ;) Of course, every
line of code you write helps you to improve your skills, so if you look
at it that way, demo coding can be seen as some sort of investment for
your own future.>

(Stop press: Lost Blubb is set to debut on MTV this autumn!)

I know that your Falcon broke down a while ago and understand you
intend to buy a new one... What attracted you to the Falcon in the
first place?

operating system which doesn't require 20Mb on a HD and the rest for
swapfiles, and being able to program a Motorola processor.>

What do you dislike?
the lack of ongoing support...>

The Atari demo scene is regarded as relaxed and friendly. Is this your
experience?

only a few guys that are arrogant towards newcomers.>

And what do you think of the PC scene?

few 2 year old demos.>

Are you currently working on new projects? Fancy telling us about them?

plans for the next big demo, but still arguing over the concept. As for
other projects, it depends on how fast I get a working Falcon. When I
get my Falcon back, I can finally release the Music Compile 3 it was
99% finished (I couldn't copy the sources from my HD before it went for
repair). Other ongoing projects includes Indypaint 2.>

Can we look forward to another megademo at the next Fried Bits party?

to solve (mostly university projects). Due to Lost Blubb we all are a
bit behind schedule. Give us a few months to decide...>

The Fried Bits party is without any doubt THE major event on the Atari
demo scene. It is organised by "The Independent". This organisation was
very active over the last couple of years but now we see a decline in
new productions by them. Is "The Independent" slowly dying?

independent as well. The active groups list includes (as far as I
know): Aura, Absence, Inter and Lazer. If any other group should
release anything it would be a big surprise. We're still in contact
though...>

Who do you think are the best groups on the Atari scene?

Hydroxid and Therapy were very good too. It is good to see new groups
start doing something for the Falcon too (I just realised we forgot to
greet Hydroxid in the intro - sorry!) In general I would like to
encourage unknown groups to release whatever they're coding. Many
groups put a lot of work into coding but never release anything, I find
that very sad.>

Do you think that disk magazines contribute to a better scene
environment? Are they as useful to you as printed magazines or merely a
collection of amusing text files?

much. Mostly only the scene rumours and demo reviews. I never read CD
tests and similar stuff.>

Are you taking reviews of your productions in disk and printed
magazines seriously?

just one persons opinion. Sometimes the reviewer lacks the knowledge to
review technical matters, but still doesn't hesitate to tell the world
that something could have been done much better! The reviews in Maggie,
compared to other mags, have always been quite good. Besides it's very
good to read a critical opinion about your efforts, naturally I'm very
fond of my own work.>

Thanks very much for taking time out from your studies to talk to us.
The interview was conducted by Sietse Postma (Slimer) on behalf of the
Maggie Team.

From left to right: Dan, Energizer, Stax, Martina and Photon


Atari - where do we go from here?

Del Stables, former Blackpool Atari shop owner issues a call to arms in
the platform wars...

The Atari platform is dead

Who says so?
Usually magazine and trade papers written by journalists
who never owned Atari machines. Does their opinion count? Not with me
it doesn't. For anyone new to computing, Atari machines are an
excellent choice, you don't need any expensive addons and they are the
easiest to get to grips with computer ever manufactured - it really is
as simple as point, click and go!

There are literally thousands of programs available (and contrary to
what some folks believe this is NOT the case with all computers)
covering every aspect of computing you can imagine. In any area of
interest you'll find a selection of PD, shareware and commercial
packages aimed at different audiences from absolute beginners right
through to seasoned professionals.

Where did all the games go?

Games publishers are so busy providing for the PC market I'm convinced
they've forgotten just how many STFM/E's there are out there. I
understand Atari sales of 'Street Fighter 2' have topped 25,000 which
surely proves well produced and marketed good games can sell.

Games crackers are largely responsible for games manufacturers and
programmers leaving the Atari scene and don't start screaming 'look at
the exorbitant prices of games!' because Nintendo and Sega owners
regularly pay crazy prices for the latest games,

The comparitive difficulty of finding illegal copies must be one of the
reasons the console games market is flourishing and attracts the
leading game coders away other platforms.

And what do you do when you look around a computer shop and see very
few, if any, Atari games? I'll bet most of you gaze in silence for a
few minutes then leave. You do, don't you? Wrong!

You should tell the shop owner that you came in to look at Atari games,
preferably telling him also of the particular game(s) you specifically
came in to buy and let him know that you have the money for the game/s
in your pocket. If enough Atari owners across our land did this the now
customary reply "We don't stock Atari games, they don't sell" could be
answered politely with "I can't buy them if you don't stock them". Go
on, give it a try, and keep on trying until something changes!

It's a fact of life that if you silently nurture a grievance then
no-one will do anything about it. You don't have to sit silently, if
something directly affects me I do something - put pen to paper and
write to ANYONE who can make a difference.

The silver lining


I run a PD library which has a specialist demo section and am in touch
with coding and packing crews who work on both the Atari and PC
platform. My mailbox continues to fill up with superb Atari demos from
all over Europe and provide fine examples of what the Atari is capable
of. I would like to take this opportunity to send greetings to all
these individual members of these groups in Britain, France, Belgium,
Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and others. I recently
counted some 200 active demo coding crews for the Atari in Europe
alone. If each crew has around five coders that's around 1000 talented
and dedicated Atari coders. Now try telling me the Atari PD/shareware
scene is "gasping its last breath!"

Del (D.W Stables) Contributor, Maggie Team.
Email: dwstables@rushden.demon.co.uk

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