by adok
mags.faq - infos about diskmags for pc-scene rookies - c 1998-1999 adokhugi
v1.4 - 1999-09-26
o0. table of contents
b a s i c t h i n g s
o1. what is a diskmag?
o2. what is not a diskmag?
o3. what is the difference between diskmags and newsletters?
o4. what is the connection between diskmags and the so-called scene?
t y p e s a n d c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s o f d i s k m a g s
o5. what are the characteristics of a typical demoscene mag?
o6. what are the characteristics of a demo/music newsletter?
o7. what are the characteristics of a german diskmagscene mag?
o8. what are the characteristics of a typical ansi-scene mag?
o9. what are the characteristics of a typical swiss scene mag?
t h e d i s k m a g s o f t o d a y
oA. how often are diskmags/newsletters released?
oB. how big are diskmags/newsletters?
oC. what are the requirements for reading diskmags/newsletters?
oD. how much do diskmags cost?
oE. where can i get diskmags?
oF. some well-known diskmags and newsletters
10. what is the e-mag network?
g e t t i n g a c t i v e
11. can i myself participate in diskmags? and why should i do that?
12. how can i support / participate in diskmags?
13. what do i have to do if i want to release a mag of my own?
g e n e r a l s t u f f
14. disclaimer
15. how to contact me?
16. changes since v1.0
17. greetings
o1. what is a diskmag?
diskmags are electronic magazines that can be read using a computer. usually
they come along with a graphical interface, which is, beside the content of
the mag, important for the style and reputation of a mag.
o2. what is not a diskmag?
no diskmags are:
a pure software-collections like the croco disk, where the text-size is
smaller than the amount of bonus-programs
b magazines that mainly consist of advertisements
c html-based mags are usually online-mags but not diskmags as they arent
spread via disk but via the web. the only exception are online versions of
real diskmags.
moreover, diskmags must not be commercial.
o3. what is the difference between diskmags and newsletters?
if not specified in the publication itself, i call publications without an
interface newsletters and publications with an interface diskmags. there are
some newsletters with interfaces as well e.g. demonews, coders/fx bbs news,
but mostly those interfaces arent required for viewing the publication and
therefore arent attached to every issue. moreover, they often dont have the
typical features of diskmag interfaces like running in graphic modes, sound
support etc.
o4. what is the connection between diskmags and the so-called scene?
most diskmags are made by scene people and therefore relate to one or several
special scenes. for example, imphobia relates to the demoscene, pain to the
swiss scene and so on. to gain more information about the term scene and the
several computer scenes, download the demoscene starter kit 2.1 available at
ftp://ftp.hornet.org/pub/demos/info/demonews/other/dssk21.zip, take a look at
http://www.hornet.org/ha/pages/pcdemos/ or - if you know german - read
de-coder in hugi 5 http://www.hugi.de/.
o5. what are the characteristics of a typical demoscene mag?
a typical demoscene mag is based on the following sections:
- adverts: sceners can advertise for their productions such as demos or
diskmags, bbses, homepages etc. many mailswappers use this section in order
to get new contacts.
- articles: the most important section in imphobia-style demoscene mags.
articles in demoscene mags are often discussions about scene-related topics,
but there are also articles about tech issues coding, gfx, music and misc
topics outside the scene.
- charts: sceners vote for the best demos, groups, coders etc. charts are so
popular that even so-called chartsmags exist, which have the aim to provide
reliable charts for the scene by trying to get votes from as many sceners as
possible. an example of this type of diskmag is splash.
- interviews: sceners interview other sceners about their scene lives, their
opinions of the latest trends in the demoscene, what they do in their real
lives and so on. interviews are usually held either via snailmail, email, irc,
or mouth-to-mouth on parties.
- message area: a place where sceners can write eachother short messages.
however, these messages are public and can be read by everyone. this section
of demoscene mags was mainly used by mailswappers who were accustomed to
waiting a long time for replies. it has been losing its importance since the
internet started to become popular among the scene and many mailswappers gave
up their activities.
- news: news about the scene, often sorted by groups. this section mainly
deals with topics like who joined/left which group, who released which demo,
who won which prize at which party etc. sometimes the news section is
accompanied by rumours, which are, in contrast to the news, mostly fictious.
their job is to entertain the demoscene-interested reader.
- party announcements: organizers of demoscene parties can announce their
events.
- party reports: sceners who attended a party talk about what happened there
in detail.
- party results: official or inofficial textfiles from the party organizers
that contain lists who reached which place in the several compos.
- reviews: sceners describe the latest or their favourite demos, diskmags,
utilities etc. and rate them.
the interface of a typical demoscene diskmag runs in a graphic mode. the
oldest mags, e.g. imphobia 1-5, run in mode 13h or mode x a resolution of
320x200 pixels with 256 colors, the later ones either, like autark, in mode
12h 640x480x16 or, like scenial, in super vga 640x480x256 or even better.
most diskmags are handled by mouse and optionally keyboard. however, some mags
have only keyboard-support.
the layout of the interface often looks like the following: the screen is
split into three parts. the part on the top of the page contains the name of
the mag and its logo. the central part is where the article menu resp. the
articles are displayed, and the part at the bottom of the page contains
buttons and/or a status bar which shows how much of the current article youve
read so far. the reader can navigate through the mag by clicking on the names
of the articles he wants to read. if you move the mouse to the left right
edge of the screen the previous next page of the article will be displayed.
the origin of this layout is imphobia 6. many demoscene diskmags have adopted
it since then.
three examples of demoscene mags: hugi11-17, imphobia, scenial.
o6. what are the characteristics of a demo/music newsletter?
in contrast to a diskmag, a newsletter is a single pure-ascii-textfile that
usually neither contains an interface nor a fileid.diz-description nor bonus
files. therefore the layout is limited to ascii-graphics like this faq.
most times the newsletters dont even use dos extended ascii characters
because they are supposed to be able to be viewed on every operating system.
nomen est omen, newsletters are specialized in news. they often focus on very
few topics. for instance older issues of demonews dealt only with the files
which had recently been uploaded to the hornet archive. these aspects - no
interface, only a few topics - and the fact that the text-amount of a
newsletter issue isnt big cause that newsletters are released more often and
on a more regular basis than real diskmags.
three examples of demo/music newsletters: demonews, static line, traxweekly.
o7. what are the characteristics of a german diskmagscene mag?
the mags of the old german diskmagscene are not so similar to eachother than
e.g. the demoscene mags, as every mag deals with different topics - the scene
is only one of many topics. but a few sections can be found in almost each of
these mags:
- artikel articles: longer texts that deal with different topics. mostly
these articles are supposed to inform the reader or to start a discussion,
which is held in the laber-rubrik then.
- charts: take a look at what ive written about the charts in demoscene
diskmags. pure chartmags dont exist in this scene.
- laber-rubrik: can be compared with the message areas of demoscene mags. in
contrast to a message area, however, the laber-rubrik contains short articles
and discussions as well. older issues of platinum are just a big laber-rubrik
without any real articles.
- selbstvorstellungen self-introductions: readers introduce themselves to
the public.
some mags, especially the later ones cream hugi, contain sections that are
known from demoscene diskmags as well, e.g. news, interviews, reviews and
party stuff.
its hard to describe a typical interface of a diskmag of this scene. the
mags interfaces have very few things in common. most of them are in vga
640x480x16, sometimes combined with 320x200x256 or 320x400x256. only cream
and later issues of suicide and hugi use svga modes. another common thing: all
interfaces except hugi 9 and later issues are split into a menu and a text
viewer part.
three examples of german diskmagscene mags: blackmail, cream, hugi1-10.
o8. what are the characteristics of a typical ansi-scene mag?
the diskmags of the ansi-scene have some things in common with artpacks. first
a major part of the mags deals with new ansi-art-releases. in contrast to
demoscene mags, those new art releases are not only reviewed but can often be
found in the mag itself, which presumes an interface that can process
ansi-control-codes. these interfaces are based on the textmode 80x25 or
80x50 as this is the best mode for viewing ansi-gfx, but they use customized
fonts.
three examples of ansi-scene mags: beam, crescent, unreal.
o9. what are the characteristics of a typical swiss scene mag?
swiss mags are mags with usually ansi-styled interfaces that deal with a mix
of demo, art and underground scene. they are focussed on the swiss scene
although some later issues of pain try to become international. common
sections:
- adverts: people and bbses can put small advertisements into the mags.
- charts: the charts are restricted to switzerland.
- comics: a special feature of older trip!-issues. they are in ansi-gfx.
- interviews: one scener asks, the other scener answers.
- news: scene news, usually not sorted by groups.
- polls: people who fill out the charts-votesheet are asked some more or less
serious questions about actual trends in the scene.
three examples of swiss scene mags: pain, trip!, trip 2 hell.
oA. how often are diskmags/newsletters released?
this point strongly differs from mag to mag. in general, diskmags are released
less often than newsletters. newsletters are often released on a semi-regular,
short basis that can be between a couple of days and monthly, whereas diskmags
are released in irregular intervals most times. the time between two issues of
a diskmag can be a month but a year as well.
some examples:
newsletters/diskmags on a semi-regular basis: traxweekly - weekly, pain -
monthly, hugi - usually every two months.
a diskmag on an extremely irregular basis is imphobia, which was usually
released every 2 to 8 months. imphobia 12, however, was released in july96,
and issue 13 has still not been released!
oB. how big are diskmags/newsletters?
its hard to give a general answer to this question. i personally distinguish
three textsize-classes:
0..300 kbyte - newsletters, small diskmags - e.g. demonews, pain, suicide
300..800 kbyte - medium diskmags - e.g. blackmail, fleur, shine
800.. oo kbyte - big diskmags - e.g. cream, hugi, imphobia
assume that 3 kbyte text are about one printed din-a4 page. therefore 300
kbyte text are about 100 din-a4 pages and 800 kbyte about 270. if you pay
attention to the fact that neither these printed pages contain any
illustrations nor a big font-size is used, youll realize that even small mags
are pretty huge.
attention: everything ive written about in the previous paragraphs is the
text-size. the text-size of a mag gives an impression of the content of the
mag, but it doesnt have anything to do with the disk-space the whole mag
takes. so if you see a zipped diskmag with a huge file-size, dont believe at
once that the text-size has to be big, too. the text-size is usually only a
small percentage of the total size of a mag. background-tunes take the most
space, followed by graphics and executable files like interfaces and bonus
programs. of course this is uninteresting if we talk about newsletters as
they usually dont have any interface.
the zipped file-size of most diskmags is smaller than or equal to the capacity
of 3.5-hd-disks 1,44 mbyte. recently, however, diskmags have been released
the zipped file-size of which is bigger than one disk. reasons for this
development are that portable media with bigger disk-spaces like zip-disks are
becoming increasingly commonplace, and that spreading via the internet is
becoming more and more important whereas swapping is slowly losing its
importance. one major advantage of this development: the diskmag makers arent
restricted in their creativity any more.
oC. what are the requirements for reading diskmags/newsletters?
in general, newsletters can be read on every computer system as they are
ascii-text-only publications without an interface. they usually dont even use
extended, system-specific ascii-characters.
the situation of diskmags is different. as im talking about pc-diskmags in
this faq, you need an ibm-compatible pc in any case. diskmags usually run in a
graphic-mode. so you need to have at least a standard-vga-card. later diskmags
require a vesa-compatible super-vga-card. this type of graphic-card is used in
every computer of today anyway. sometimes, however, there are situations when
your graphic-card doesnt support some special feature. then you have to use a
vesa-driver like univbe shareware, available at http://www.scitechsoft.com/.
if you want to hear music, you need a soundcard. most diskmags support gravis
ultrasound, soundblaster and compatible cards. furthermore, having a mouse can
be useful although most diskmags support keyboard, too. and you need up to
five megs of free harddisk-space after uncompressing a mag. almost every pc of
today has these components. so viewing a mag should not be any trouble.
oD. how much do diskmags cost?
this answers simple: nothing! diskmags can be freely spread. just download a
mag via the internet or a bbs near you or ask a friend of yours resp. one of
your swapping contax if he/she can give you a mag. if you dont have any
swapping contax, read dentoes swapping.faq to get information about this
topic.
diskmags have to be non-commercial. commercial electronic magazines might
exist as well, but they are not true diskmags. the creators of diskmags are
people like you and me, usually pupils or students, who do everything just for
the fun of it and dont intend to make any profit.
therefore diskmags are strongly dependent on their readers support. for
further information read how can i support / participate in diskmags?.
oE. where can i get diskmags?
the most important diskmag archives are located at:
ftp://amber.bti.pl/scene/mags/ ............... polish mags
ftp://crimson.umgdy.gov.pl/scenepl/ ......... polish mags
ftp://ftp.beit-eli.gov.il/incoming/ten/ ...... the e-mag network official ftp
ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/msdos/magazines/ ...... misc
ftp://ftp.mystique.sk/pub/scene/ ............. slovak mags
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/mags/ ................ demoscene mags
http://artpacks.acid.org/ .................... ansi mags
http://flerp.scene.hu/ ....................... demoscene mags
http://scene.swix.org/ ....................... swiss mags
http://vyhen.site.cz/ ........................ all issues of vyhen czech
http://www.hornet.org/ ....................... demoscene mags from 1992-1998
http://www.hugi.de/ .......................... all issues of hugi
http://www.iponet.es/dardo/diskmag.html ..... spanish / south-american mags
http://www.numb.de/ .......................... all issues of cream german
a couple of diskmag reviews can be found at: http://www.scene-central.com/
oF. some well-known diskmags and newsletters
-name/creator or group/language/type/topic/number of issues released so far-
Amber - ADET - e - dmag - polish demoscene -* 1
Armor of Gods - UniVerse - r/e - dmag - demoscene - 4
Autark - N-Factor - e/g - dmag - demoscene, politics - 1
Bad News - Pulse - p/e - dmag - demoscene - 4
Beam - Black Maiden - e - dmag - ansi scene - 3
Blackmail - Knockout - g - dmag - politics, computers - 12
Budyn - Budyn Staff - p/e - dmag - demoscene - 2
CLI - Micropyle - h - dmag - cinema, demoscene, misc -* 18
CFX BBS News - CFX BBS Staff - e - nwsl - israeli demoscene - 34
Cream - Obnoxious - g - dmag - literature, demoscene - 4
Daskmig - Inferiors - e - dmag - demoscene - 8
DefCoN - K!Prod - f/e - dmag - demoscene, computers -* 2
demojournal - Psych. Symph. - e - nwsl - demoscene -* 57
DemoNews - Hornet - e - nwsl - demoscene - 150
Dragon - Dragon Group - p/e - dmag - polish demoscene -* 5
Fleur - Fleur Staff - e - dmag - demoscene -* 3
Hacker - DDT Ent. - r - dmag - russian demoscene -* 9
Heroin - Beyond - e - dmag - demoscene charts -* 1
Hoax - Epical - e - dmag - demoscene - 6
HotMag - HotMag Crew - g - dmag - politics, nonsense, misc - 6
HUGI - Royal Family - e/g - dmag - scene everything else -* 17
Imphobia - Imphobia - e - dmag - demoscene, misc - 12
Insight - Insight Staff - e/d - dmag - demoscene, coding - 2
Luna - Moon Hunters - e - dmag - israeli demoscene - 1
Measure - Measure Staff - p/e - dmag - polish demoscene, drugs -* 8
MicroCode - MC Orga Team - g - dmag - programming - 6
New World Order - Weird Magic - e - dmag - demoscene - 8
Pain - Pain Staff - e - dmag - demoscene, swiss scene -* 40
Parrot - Crypton - e - dmag - demoscene - 3
Platinum - Solar Design - g - dmag - computers, misc - 20
Pulse - Extreme - e - dmag - demoscene - 4
Restless - Xtatic, Hornet - e - dmag - demoscene - 2
Scenial - Access Denied - e - dmag - demoscene satirical -* 3
Shine - Replay - e - dmag - demoscene -* 5
Skyline - Skyline Redak. - g - dmag - lifestyle, media - 12
Splash - Splash Staff - e - dmag - demoscene charts - 4
Static Line - Immortal Coil - e - nwsl - tracked music scene -* 13
Suicide - Suicide DMG - g - dmag - hardware, misc - 13
Tankard - Grinders - p/e - dmag - soccer, demoscene, misc -* 4
Technoguide - Wire Maniacs - e - dmag - swiss music - 8
Total Disaster - Tatanka - p/e - dmag - demoscene, art, misc -* 4
TraxWeekly - Hornet - e - nwsl - tracked music scene - 119
Trip - Excite - e - dmag - swiss demo/ansi scene -* 10
TUHBzine - TUHB - d/e - dmag - demoscene, coding, manga -* 6
Vyhen - Vyhen Staff - c - dmag - computers, misc -* 10
ddutch, cczech, eengl., ffrench, gger., hhung., ppol., rrus.
* indicates active diskmags
10. what is the e-mag network?
the e-mag network ten was founded by programmer/universe in may 1998. it was
an attempt to link diskmag editors from all over the world together, build up
an article exchange base and later merge the member diskmags to one big mag.
mags like armor of gods, hugi, restless, pain, defcon, and cfx news were part
of this project. practically ten was a mailinglist over which the member
mags editors communicated and occasionally exchanged articles. but the actual
aim, namely merging the diskmags, was never realized as nobody was really
interested in losing his independence. ten later decided to make a chartsmag
together under the lead of darkness/imphobia, but it did not work out either.
today the ten mailinglist still exists but it has not been used for months.
11. can i myself participate in diskmags? and why should i do that?
yes, of course! as mentioned above, diskmags live on their readers support.
so 99 of the diskmags do not only have nothing against their readers desire
to get active, but they even appreciate it!
12. how can i support / participate in diskmags?
the number of possibilities how you can support or even participate in
diskmags is very high. furthermore, everyone is able to support mags, no
matter whether he is talented in some discipline, no matter whether hes got a
lot of time, no matter where he comes from, no matter whether he wants to
focus on a certain mag or to try to provide as many mags as possible!
here are some of the manifold possibilities of supporting diskmags.
t h i n g s e v e r y o n e c a n d o
- swapping/spreading: in order to become known among the people, mags need to
get spread as much as possible.
a swapper is a person who sends the latest freeware / public domain programs,
scene-stuff, diskmags and a personal letter to his contax abbreviation for
contacts via snailmail. within their reply the swappers contax on the other
hand send him the stuff they have got recently and a personal letter - and so
on. the goal of swapping is to make friends with your contax and to get new,
interesting stuff. in former days swapping was a not so fast but very
efficient way to have good stuff - among other things diskmags - being spread
and becoming popular among the scene. nowadays quite a few people still swap.
its very easy to become a swapper yourself, and it can be great fun! just
take a look into the advert section of the latest demoscene mag and contact
the people who are looking for contax. at the beginning you probably wont
have much interesting and new stuff. but - why not swap the diskmag in which
you found your new contax addresses? with the time youll get lots of new and
good diskmags and other scene-stuff that looking for stuff to send wont be a
great problem anymore.
however, swapping has gradually lost its importance. spreading via bbses and
the internet has become commoner and commoner. the advantage to swapping is
that you have to upload your stuff to a bbs/site only once, then everyone who
logs in the bbs/site can download it. nowadays spreading diskmags via
online-media is even easier than swapping as nearly everyone has a modem. you
might ask why you should make so much effort to upload a diskmag if you dont
get anything in return. after all, almost no ftp-server and - nowadays - only
few bbses have a download ratio. download ratio means that you have to upload
a certain amount of stuff before you are permitted to download anything.
well, thats correct. but you have to keep in your mind: if everyone thought
this way, all bbses and ftp-servers would be empty. therefore you ought to
contribute to keep this mechanism alive!
- voting: if the diskmag you want to support contains a charts section or if
it is even a chartsmag, itll be a great help for the diskmag editors if you
fill out and submit the votesheet. however, think a bit before voting and be
careful.
i f y o u w a n t t o g e t m o r e a c t i v e
- news: you have contact to a famous demogroup or heard some interesting
rumours? dont hesitate to tell the editors of your preferred diskmag about
them! a news-text doesnt have to be big, but freshness is important.
- articles and other texts: the main component of most diskmags. if you want
to write an article, choose a topic that fits to the character of the diskmag
and that you know about lots of things. take part in discussions and start new
ones. you should write in an as detailled and interesting way as possible, but
youve got enough freedom to develop your very own writing style. good article
writers will become famous all over the scene!
c l o s e c o o p e r a t i o n
- tunes: if you are talented at tracking, youll be warmly welcomed by most
diskmag-staffs. send in your tunes, and if they are good enough and dont take
too much disk-space, theyll probably be used in one of the next issues. if
you plan to make tracked music for a certain diskmag regularly, you can join
the diskmag-staff as a musician.
- graphics: every diskmag with a graphical interface needs background graphics
gfx. if you are really talented at pixeling and do not just create
pseudo-graphics using cliparts or scanned material, why dont you ask a
diskmag-staff if they want you to draw the graphics for their next issue? if
you plan to make graphics for a certain diskmag regularly, you can join the
diskmag-staff as a graphician.
- coding: some diskmag-staff is in need of an intro for their next issue, a
new interface or some bug-fixing but isnt able to find a nice coder who could
take over this work? if you have enough knowledge in coding programming, you
might be able to help them! you usually have to know c, assembler and some
basic things about graphics, mouse/keyboard control, how to produce nice demo
effects etc. if you plan to do some programming jobs for a certain diskmag
regularly, you can join the diskmag-staff as a coder.
- editing: before an article is published in a diskmag, its a long way to go.
the editors job is to correct grammatical mistakes in the articles. sometimes
he even has to re-write some passages. furthermore, he has to format the
articles so that they fit the layout of the diskmags. an editors work is hard
but necessary. otherwise the quality of a diskmag would be much lower. on the
other hand, diskmag-editors are in a powerful and highly responsible position.
the main editors of diskmags often do organizing tasks as well and can form
the mags as they want to. if you want to become an editor of a certain
diskmag, you have to join the diskmag-staff.
13. what do i have to do if i want to release a mag of my own?
whoa, what a question! i think i could write a text-file about this topic that
is three times as big as this faq. in general, its better not to start a
diskmag of your own at once. at first you should participate in some existing
mags, watch the scene, gain lots of experience, and then if you think that
you are capable of doing all these things a main-editor of a diskmag has to
do... - try!
14. disclaimer
this text file is freeware, which means that it can be spread freely as long
as you dont modify it. feel free to publish it in your diskmag.
15. how to contact me?
feel free to contact me if you have any questions, suggestions or just want to
talk.
e-mail .......... hugi@netway.at
homepage ........ http://www.hugi.de/
ircnet .......... adokhugi
snailmail ....... Claus-Dieter Volko, Hungereckstr. 60/2, A-1230 Wien, Austria
16. changes since v1.0
version 1.4 1999-09-26
- updated what is the connection between diskmags and the so-called scene?
- updated how big are diskmags/newsletters?
- updated where can i get diskmags?
- updated types and characteristics of diskmags
- updated list of well-known diskmags
- updated what is the e-mag network?
- updated disclaimer
- updated contact information
- updated greetings list
version 1.3 1998-06-27
- added what is the e-mag network?
- added ftp://ftp.beit-eli.gov.il/incoming/ten
- updated greetings list
- updated url of pc demos explained
- changed my e-mail address
version 1.2 1998-06-09
- added defcon, restless to the list of well-known diskmags
- added ftp://crimson.umgdy.gov.pl/scenepl/
- added http://home.pages.de/mags.faq/
- updated information about several mags
- removed outdated greetings list
version 1.1 1998-04-08
- added anothermag, hoax, parrot and pulse to the list of well-known diskmags
- added http://www.iponet.es/dardo/diskmag.html
- corrected information about insight
- re-wrote some passages
version 1.0 1998-03-27
first official release
17. greetings
greetings to mad/os for making the cd diskmag-pack - the reason why i
decided to update this silly textfile once again after more than a year.
mags.faq - infos about diskmags for pc-scene rookies - c 1998-1999 adokhugi
v1.4 - 1999-09-26
o0. table of contents
b a s i c t h i n g s
o1. what is a diskmag?
o2. what is not a diskmag?
o3. what is the difference between diskmags and newsletters?
o4. what is the connection between diskmags and the so-called scene?
t y p e s a n d c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s o f d i s k m a g s
o5. what are the characteristics of a typical demoscene mag?
o6. what are the characteristics of a demo/music newsletter?
o7. what are the characteristics of a german diskmagscene mag?
o8. what are the characteristics of a typical ansi-scene mag?
o9. what are the characteristics of a typical swiss scene mag?
t h e d i s k m a g s o f t o d a y
oA. how often are diskmags/newsletters released?
oB. how big are diskmags/newsletters?
oC. what are the requirements for reading diskmags/newsletters?
oD. how much do diskmags cost?
oE. where can i get diskmags?
oF. some well-known diskmags and newsletters
10. what is the e-mag network?
g e t t i n g a c t i v e
11. can i myself participate in diskmags? and why should i do that?
12. how can i support / participate in diskmags?
13. what do i have to do if i want to release a mag of my own?
g e n e r a l s t u f f
14. disclaimer
15. how to contact me?
16. changes since v1.0
17. greetings
o1. what is a diskmag?
diskmags are electronic magazines that can be read using a computer. usually
they come along with a graphical interface, which is, beside the content of
the mag, important for the style and reputation of a mag.
o2. what is not a diskmag?
no diskmags are:
a pure software-collections like the croco disk, where the text-size is
smaller than the amount of bonus-programs
b magazines that mainly consist of advertisements
c html-based mags are usually online-mags but not diskmags as they arent
spread via disk but via the web. the only exception are online versions of
real diskmags.
moreover, diskmags must not be commercial.
o3. what is the difference between diskmags and newsletters?
if not specified in the publication itself, i call publications without an
interface newsletters and publications with an interface diskmags. there are
some newsletters with interfaces as well e.g. demonews, coders/fx bbs news,
but mostly those interfaces arent required for viewing the publication and
therefore arent attached to every issue. moreover, they often dont have the
typical features of diskmag interfaces like running in graphic modes, sound
support etc.
o4. what is the connection between diskmags and the so-called scene?
most diskmags are made by scene people and therefore relate to one or several
special scenes. for example, imphobia relates to the demoscene, pain to the
swiss scene and so on. to gain more information about the term scene and the
several computer scenes, download the demoscene starter kit 2.1 available at
ftp://ftp.hornet.org/pub/demos/info/demonews/other/dssk21.zip, take a look at
http://www.hornet.org/ha/pages/pcdemos/ or - if you know german - read
de-coder in hugi 5 http://www.hugi.de/.
o5. what are the characteristics of a typical demoscene mag?
a typical demoscene mag is based on the following sections:
- adverts: sceners can advertise for their productions such as demos or
diskmags, bbses, homepages etc. many mailswappers use this section in order
to get new contacts.
- articles: the most important section in imphobia-style demoscene mags.
articles in demoscene mags are often discussions about scene-related topics,
but there are also articles about tech issues coding, gfx, music and misc
topics outside the scene.
- charts: sceners vote for the best demos, groups, coders etc. charts are so
popular that even so-called chartsmags exist, which have the aim to provide
reliable charts for the scene by trying to get votes from as many sceners as
possible. an example of this type of diskmag is splash.
- interviews: sceners interview other sceners about their scene lives, their
opinions of the latest trends in the demoscene, what they do in their real
lives and so on. interviews are usually held either via snailmail, email, irc,
or mouth-to-mouth on parties.
- message area: a place where sceners can write eachother short messages.
however, these messages are public and can be read by everyone. this section
of demoscene mags was mainly used by mailswappers who were accustomed to
waiting a long time for replies. it has been losing its importance since the
internet started to become popular among the scene and many mailswappers gave
up their activities.
- news: news about the scene, often sorted by groups. this section mainly
deals with topics like who joined/left which group, who released which demo,
who won which prize at which party etc. sometimes the news section is
accompanied by rumours, which are, in contrast to the news, mostly fictious.
their job is to entertain the demoscene-interested reader.
- party announcements: organizers of demoscene parties can announce their
events.
- party reports: sceners who attended a party talk about what happened there
in detail.
- party results: official or inofficial textfiles from the party organizers
that contain lists who reached which place in the several compos.
- reviews: sceners describe the latest or their favourite demos, diskmags,
utilities etc. and rate them.
the interface of a typical demoscene diskmag runs in a graphic mode. the
oldest mags, e.g. imphobia 1-5, run in mode 13h or mode x a resolution of
320x200 pixels with 256 colors, the later ones either, like autark, in mode
12h 640x480x16 or, like scenial, in super vga 640x480x256 or even better.
most diskmags are handled by mouse and optionally keyboard. however, some mags
have only keyboard-support.
the layout of the interface often looks like the following: the screen is
split into three parts. the part on the top of the page contains the name of
the mag and its logo. the central part is where the article menu resp. the
articles are displayed, and the part at the bottom of the page contains
buttons and/or a status bar which shows how much of the current article youve
read so far. the reader can navigate through the mag by clicking on the names
of the articles he wants to read. if you move the mouse to the left right
edge of the screen the previous next page of the article will be displayed.
the origin of this layout is imphobia 6. many demoscene diskmags have adopted
it since then.
three examples of demoscene mags: hugi11-17, imphobia, scenial.
o6. what are the characteristics of a demo/music newsletter?
in contrast to a diskmag, a newsletter is a single pure-ascii-textfile that
usually neither contains an interface nor a fileid.diz-description nor bonus
files. therefore the layout is limited to ascii-graphics like this faq.
most times the newsletters dont even use dos extended ascii characters
because they are supposed to be able to be viewed on every operating system.
nomen est omen, newsletters are specialized in news. they often focus on very
few topics. for instance older issues of demonews dealt only with the files
which had recently been uploaded to the hornet archive. these aspects - no
interface, only a few topics - and the fact that the text-amount of a
newsletter issue isnt big cause that newsletters are released more often and
on a more regular basis than real diskmags.
three examples of demo/music newsletters: demonews, static line, traxweekly.
o7. what are the characteristics of a german diskmagscene mag?
the mags of the old german diskmagscene are not so similar to eachother than
e.g. the demoscene mags, as every mag deals with different topics - the scene
is only one of many topics. but a few sections can be found in almost each of
these mags:
- artikel articles: longer texts that deal with different topics. mostly
these articles are supposed to inform the reader or to start a discussion,
which is held in the laber-rubrik then.
- charts: take a look at what ive written about the charts in demoscene
diskmags. pure chartmags dont exist in this scene.
- laber-rubrik: can be compared with the message areas of demoscene mags. in
contrast to a message area, however, the laber-rubrik contains short articles
and discussions as well. older issues of platinum are just a big laber-rubrik
without any real articles.
- selbstvorstellungen self-introductions: readers introduce themselves to
the public.
some mags, especially the later ones cream hugi, contain sections that are
known from demoscene diskmags as well, e.g. news, interviews, reviews and
party stuff.
its hard to describe a typical interface of a diskmag of this scene. the
mags interfaces have very few things in common. most of them are in vga
640x480x16, sometimes combined with 320x200x256 or 320x400x256. only cream
and later issues of suicide and hugi use svga modes. another common thing: all
interfaces except hugi 9 and later issues are split into a menu and a text
viewer part.
three examples of german diskmagscene mags: blackmail, cream, hugi1-10.
o8. what are the characteristics of a typical ansi-scene mag?
the diskmags of the ansi-scene have some things in common with artpacks. first
a major part of the mags deals with new ansi-art-releases. in contrast to
demoscene mags, those new art releases are not only reviewed but can often be
found in the mag itself, which presumes an interface that can process
ansi-control-codes. these interfaces are based on the textmode 80x25 or
80x50 as this is the best mode for viewing ansi-gfx, but they use customized
fonts.
three examples of ansi-scene mags: beam, crescent, unreal.
o9. what are the characteristics of a typical swiss scene mag?
swiss mags are mags with usually ansi-styled interfaces that deal with a mix
of demo, art and underground scene. they are focussed on the swiss scene
although some later issues of pain try to become international. common
sections:
- adverts: people and bbses can put small advertisements into the mags.
- charts: the charts are restricted to switzerland.
- comics: a special feature of older trip!-issues. they are in ansi-gfx.
- interviews: one scener asks, the other scener answers.
- news: scene news, usually not sorted by groups.
- polls: people who fill out the charts-votesheet are asked some more or less
serious questions about actual trends in the scene.
three examples of swiss scene mags: pain, trip!, trip 2 hell.
oA. how often are diskmags/newsletters released?
this point strongly differs from mag to mag. in general, diskmags are released
less often than newsletters. newsletters are often released on a semi-regular,
short basis that can be between a couple of days and monthly, whereas diskmags
are released in irregular intervals most times. the time between two issues of
a diskmag can be a month but a year as well.
some examples:
newsletters/diskmags on a semi-regular basis: traxweekly - weekly, pain -
monthly, hugi - usually every two months.
a diskmag on an extremely irregular basis is imphobia, which was usually
released every 2 to 8 months. imphobia 12, however, was released in july96,
and issue 13 has still not been released!
oB. how big are diskmags/newsletters?
its hard to give a general answer to this question. i personally distinguish
three textsize-classes:
0..300 kbyte - newsletters, small diskmags - e.g. demonews, pain, suicide
300..800 kbyte - medium diskmags - e.g. blackmail, fleur, shine
800.. oo kbyte - big diskmags - e.g. cream, hugi, imphobia
assume that 3 kbyte text are about one printed din-a4 page. therefore 300
kbyte text are about 100 din-a4 pages and 800 kbyte about 270. if you pay
attention to the fact that neither these printed pages contain any
illustrations nor a big font-size is used, youll realize that even small mags
are pretty huge.
attention: everything ive written about in the previous paragraphs is the
text-size. the text-size of a mag gives an impression of the content of the
mag, but it doesnt have anything to do with the disk-space the whole mag
takes. so if you see a zipped diskmag with a huge file-size, dont believe at
once that the text-size has to be big, too. the text-size is usually only a
small percentage of the total size of a mag. background-tunes take the most
space, followed by graphics and executable files like interfaces and bonus
programs. of course this is uninteresting if we talk about newsletters as
they usually dont have any interface.
the zipped file-size of most diskmags is smaller than or equal to the capacity
of 3.5-hd-disks 1,44 mbyte. recently, however, diskmags have been released
the zipped file-size of which is bigger than one disk. reasons for this
development are that portable media with bigger disk-spaces like zip-disks are
becoming increasingly commonplace, and that spreading via the internet is
becoming more and more important whereas swapping is slowly losing its
importance. one major advantage of this development: the diskmag makers arent
restricted in their creativity any more.
oC. what are the requirements for reading diskmags/newsletters?
in general, newsletters can be read on every computer system as they are
ascii-text-only publications without an interface. they usually dont even use
extended, system-specific ascii-characters.
the situation of diskmags is different. as im talking about pc-diskmags in
this faq, you need an ibm-compatible pc in any case. diskmags usually run in a
graphic-mode. so you need to have at least a standard-vga-card. later diskmags
require a vesa-compatible super-vga-card. this type of graphic-card is used in
every computer of today anyway. sometimes, however, there are situations when
your graphic-card doesnt support some special feature. then you have to use a
vesa-driver like univbe shareware, available at http://www.scitechsoft.com/.
if you want to hear music, you need a soundcard. most diskmags support gravis
ultrasound, soundblaster and compatible cards. furthermore, having a mouse can
be useful although most diskmags support keyboard, too. and you need up to
five megs of free harddisk-space after uncompressing a mag. almost every pc of
today has these components. so viewing a mag should not be any trouble.
oD. how much do diskmags cost?
this answers simple: nothing! diskmags can be freely spread. just download a
mag via the internet or a bbs near you or ask a friend of yours resp. one of
your swapping contax if he/she can give you a mag. if you dont have any
swapping contax, read dentoes swapping.faq to get information about this
topic.
diskmags have to be non-commercial. commercial electronic magazines might
exist as well, but they are not true diskmags. the creators of diskmags are
people like you and me, usually pupils or students, who do everything just for
the fun of it and dont intend to make any profit.
therefore diskmags are strongly dependent on their readers support. for
further information read how can i support / participate in diskmags?.
oE. where can i get diskmags?
the most important diskmag archives are located at:
ftp://amber.bti.pl/scene/mags/ ............... polish mags
ftp://crimson.umgdy.gov.pl/scenepl/ ......... polish mags
ftp://ftp.beit-eli.gov.il/incoming/ten/ ...... the e-mag network official ftp
ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/msdos/magazines/ ...... misc
ftp://ftp.mystique.sk/pub/scene/ ............. slovak mags
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/mags/ ................ demoscene mags
http://artpacks.acid.org/ .................... ansi mags
http://flerp.scene.hu/ ....................... demoscene mags
http://scene.swix.org/ ....................... swiss mags
http://vyhen.site.cz/ ........................ all issues of vyhen czech
http://www.hornet.org/ ....................... demoscene mags from 1992-1998
http://www.hugi.de/ .......................... all issues of hugi
http://www.iponet.es/dardo/diskmag.html ..... spanish / south-american mags
http://www.numb.de/ .......................... all issues of cream german
a couple of diskmag reviews can be found at: http://www.scene-central.com/
oF. some well-known diskmags and newsletters
-name/creator or group/language/type/topic/number of issues released so far-
Amber - ADET - e - dmag - polish demoscene -* 1
Armor of Gods - UniVerse - r/e - dmag - demoscene - 4
Autark - N-Factor - e/g - dmag - demoscene, politics - 1
Bad News - Pulse - p/e - dmag - demoscene - 4
Beam - Black Maiden - e - dmag - ansi scene - 3
Blackmail - Knockout - g - dmag - politics, computers - 12
Budyn - Budyn Staff - p/e - dmag - demoscene - 2
CLI - Micropyle - h - dmag - cinema, demoscene, misc -* 18
CFX BBS News - CFX BBS Staff - e - nwsl - israeli demoscene - 34
Cream - Obnoxious - g - dmag - literature, demoscene - 4
Daskmig - Inferiors - e - dmag - demoscene - 8
DefCoN - K!Prod - f/e - dmag - demoscene, computers -* 2
demojournal - Psych. Symph. - e - nwsl - demoscene -* 57
DemoNews - Hornet - e - nwsl - demoscene - 150
Dragon - Dragon Group - p/e - dmag - polish demoscene -* 5
Fleur - Fleur Staff - e - dmag - demoscene -* 3
Hacker - DDT Ent. - r - dmag - russian demoscene -* 9
Heroin - Beyond - e - dmag - demoscene charts -* 1
Hoax - Epical - e - dmag - demoscene - 6
HotMag - HotMag Crew - g - dmag - politics, nonsense, misc - 6
HUGI - Royal Family - e/g - dmag - scene everything else -* 17
Imphobia - Imphobia - e - dmag - demoscene, misc - 12
Insight - Insight Staff - e/d - dmag - demoscene, coding - 2
Luna - Moon Hunters - e - dmag - israeli demoscene - 1
Measure - Measure Staff - p/e - dmag - polish demoscene, drugs -* 8
MicroCode - MC Orga Team - g - dmag - programming - 6
New World Order - Weird Magic - e - dmag - demoscene - 8
Pain - Pain Staff - e - dmag - demoscene, swiss scene -* 40
Parrot - Crypton - e - dmag - demoscene - 3
Platinum - Solar Design - g - dmag - computers, misc - 20
Pulse - Extreme - e - dmag - demoscene - 4
Restless - Xtatic, Hornet - e - dmag - demoscene - 2
Scenial - Access Denied - e - dmag - demoscene satirical -* 3
Shine - Replay - e - dmag - demoscene -* 5
Skyline - Skyline Redak. - g - dmag - lifestyle, media - 12
Splash - Splash Staff - e - dmag - demoscene charts - 4
Static Line - Immortal Coil - e - nwsl - tracked music scene -* 13
Suicide - Suicide DMG - g - dmag - hardware, misc - 13
Tankard - Grinders - p/e - dmag - soccer, demoscene, misc -* 4
Technoguide - Wire Maniacs - e - dmag - swiss music - 8
Total Disaster - Tatanka - p/e - dmag - demoscene, art, misc -* 4
TraxWeekly - Hornet - e - nwsl - tracked music scene - 119
Trip - Excite - e - dmag - swiss demo/ansi scene -* 10
TUHBzine - TUHB - d/e - dmag - demoscene, coding, manga -* 6
Vyhen - Vyhen Staff - c - dmag - computers, misc -* 10
ddutch, cczech, eengl., ffrench, gger., hhung., ppol., rrus.
* indicates active diskmags
10. what is the e-mag network?
the e-mag network ten was founded by programmer/universe in may 1998. it was
an attempt to link diskmag editors from all over the world together, build up
an article exchange base and later merge the member diskmags to one big mag.
mags like armor of gods, hugi, restless, pain, defcon, and cfx news were part
of this project. practically ten was a mailinglist over which the member
mags editors communicated and occasionally exchanged articles. but the actual
aim, namely merging the diskmags, was never realized as nobody was really
interested in losing his independence. ten later decided to make a chartsmag
together under the lead of darkness/imphobia, but it did not work out either.
today the ten mailinglist still exists but it has not been used for months.
11. can i myself participate in diskmags? and why should i do that?
yes, of course! as mentioned above, diskmags live on their readers support.
so 99 of the diskmags do not only have nothing against their readers desire
to get active, but they even appreciate it!
12. how can i support / participate in diskmags?
the number of possibilities how you can support or even participate in
diskmags is very high. furthermore, everyone is able to support mags, no
matter whether he is talented in some discipline, no matter whether hes got a
lot of time, no matter where he comes from, no matter whether he wants to
focus on a certain mag or to try to provide as many mags as possible!
here are some of the manifold possibilities of supporting diskmags.
t h i n g s e v e r y o n e c a n d o
- swapping/spreading: in order to become known among the people, mags need to
get spread as much as possible.
a swapper is a person who sends the latest freeware / public domain programs,
scene-stuff, diskmags and a personal letter to his contax abbreviation for
contacts via snailmail. within their reply the swappers contax on the other
hand send him the stuff they have got recently and a personal letter - and so
on. the goal of swapping is to make friends with your contax and to get new,
interesting stuff. in former days swapping was a not so fast but very
efficient way to have good stuff - among other things diskmags - being spread
and becoming popular among the scene. nowadays quite a few people still swap.
its very easy to become a swapper yourself, and it can be great fun! just
take a look into the advert section of the latest demoscene mag and contact
the people who are looking for contax. at the beginning you probably wont
have much interesting and new stuff. but - why not swap the diskmag in which
you found your new contax addresses? with the time youll get lots of new and
good diskmags and other scene-stuff that looking for stuff to send wont be a
great problem anymore.
however, swapping has gradually lost its importance. spreading via bbses and
the internet has become commoner and commoner. the advantage to swapping is
that you have to upload your stuff to a bbs/site only once, then everyone who
logs in the bbs/site can download it. nowadays spreading diskmags via
online-media is even easier than swapping as nearly everyone has a modem. you
might ask why you should make so much effort to upload a diskmag if you dont
get anything in return. after all, almost no ftp-server and - nowadays - only
few bbses have a download ratio. download ratio means that you have to upload
a certain amount of stuff before you are permitted to download anything.
well, thats correct. but you have to keep in your mind: if everyone thought
this way, all bbses and ftp-servers would be empty. therefore you ought to
contribute to keep this mechanism alive!
- voting: if the diskmag you want to support contains a charts section or if
it is even a chartsmag, itll be a great help for the diskmag editors if you
fill out and submit the votesheet. however, think a bit before voting and be
careful.
i f y o u w a n t t o g e t m o r e a c t i v e
- news: you have contact to a famous demogroup or heard some interesting
rumours? dont hesitate to tell the editors of your preferred diskmag about
them! a news-text doesnt have to be big, but freshness is important.
- articles and other texts: the main component of most diskmags. if you want
to write an article, choose a topic that fits to the character of the diskmag
and that you know about lots of things. take part in discussions and start new
ones. you should write in an as detailled and interesting way as possible, but
youve got enough freedom to develop your very own writing style. good article
writers will become famous all over the scene!
c l o s e c o o p e r a t i o n
- tunes: if you are talented at tracking, youll be warmly welcomed by most
diskmag-staffs. send in your tunes, and if they are good enough and dont take
too much disk-space, theyll probably be used in one of the next issues. if
you plan to make tracked music for a certain diskmag regularly, you can join
the diskmag-staff as a musician.
- graphics: every diskmag with a graphical interface needs background graphics
gfx. if you are really talented at pixeling and do not just create
pseudo-graphics using cliparts or scanned material, why dont you ask a
diskmag-staff if they want you to draw the graphics for their next issue? if
you plan to make graphics for a certain diskmag regularly, you can join the
diskmag-staff as a graphician.
- coding: some diskmag-staff is in need of an intro for their next issue, a
new interface or some bug-fixing but isnt able to find a nice coder who could
take over this work? if you have enough knowledge in coding programming, you
might be able to help them! you usually have to know c, assembler and some
basic things about graphics, mouse/keyboard control, how to produce nice demo
effects etc. if you plan to do some programming jobs for a certain diskmag
regularly, you can join the diskmag-staff as a coder.
- editing: before an article is published in a diskmag, its a long way to go.
the editors job is to correct grammatical mistakes in the articles. sometimes
he even has to re-write some passages. furthermore, he has to format the
articles so that they fit the layout of the diskmags. an editors work is hard
but necessary. otherwise the quality of a diskmag would be much lower. on the
other hand, diskmag-editors are in a powerful and highly responsible position.
the main editors of diskmags often do organizing tasks as well and can form
the mags as they want to. if you want to become an editor of a certain
diskmag, you have to join the diskmag-staff.
13. what do i have to do if i want to release a mag of my own?
whoa, what a question! i think i could write a text-file about this topic that
is three times as big as this faq. in general, its better not to start a
diskmag of your own at once. at first you should participate in some existing
mags, watch the scene, gain lots of experience, and then if you think that
you are capable of doing all these things a main-editor of a diskmag has to
do... - try!
14. disclaimer
this text file is freeware, which means that it can be spread freely as long
as you dont modify it. feel free to publish it in your diskmag.
15. how to contact me?
feel free to contact me if you have any questions, suggestions or just want to
talk.
e-mail .......... hugi@netway.at
homepage ........ http://www.hugi.de/
ircnet .......... adokhugi
snailmail ....... Claus-Dieter Volko, Hungereckstr. 60/2, A-1230 Wien, Austria
16. changes since v1.0
version 1.4 1999-09-26
- updated what is the connection between diskmags and the so-called scene?
- updated how big are diskmags/newsletters?
- updated where can i get diskmags?
- updated types and characteristics of diskmags
- updated list of well-known diskmags
- updated what is the e-mag network?
- updated disclaimer
- updated contact information
- updated greetings list
version 1.3 1998-06-27
- added what is the e-mag network?
- added ftp://ftp.beit-eli.gov.il/incoming/ten
- updated greetings list
- updated url of pc demos explained
- changed my e-mail address
version 1.2 1998-06-09
- added defcon, restless to the list of well-known diskmags
- added ftp://crimson.umgdy.gov.pl/scenepl/
- added http://home.pages.de/mags.faq/
- updated information about several mags
- removed outdated greetings list
version 1.1 1998-04-08
- added anothermag, hoax, parrot and pulse to the list of well-known diskmags
- added http://www.iponet.es/dardo/diskmag.html
- corrected information about insight
- re-wrote some passages
version 1.0 1998-03-27
first official release
17. greetings
greetings to mad/os for making the cd diskmag-pack - the reason why i
decided to update this silly textfile once again after more than a year.
log in to add a comment.