컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 旼컫컫컫커旼쩡쩡� 납냉冒납윱넬텐납� 납납납냉올닥눴납� 읒좋컵-쳐좋牡컨엿 읕�by adok잎 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴 mags.faq - infos about diskmags for pc-scene rookies - (c) 1998-1999 adok^hugi 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 aren't 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 aren't required for viewing the publication and therefore aren't attached to every issue. moreover, they often don't 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 you've 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: hugi#11-#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 file_id.diz-description nor bonus files. therefore the layout is limited to ascii-'graphics' (like this faq). most times the newsletters don't 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 isn't 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 i've written about the charts in demoscene diskmags. pure chartmags don't 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. it's 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, hugi#1-#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 july'96, and issue #13 has still not been released! [� oB. how big are diskmags/newsletters? �] it's 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, you'll realize that even small mags are pretty huge. attention: everything i've 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 doesn't have anything to do with the disk-space the whole mag takes. so if you see a zipped diskmag with a huge file-size, don't 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 don't 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 aren't 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 don't even use extended, system-specific ascii-characters. the situation of diskmags is different. as i'm 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 doesn't 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 answer's 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 don't have any swapping contax, read dentoe's 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 don't 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/scene_pl/ ......... 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 (d==dutch, c==czech, e==engl., f==french, g==ger., h==hung., p==pol., r==rus.) * 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 he's 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 swapper's 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. it's 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 won't have much interesting and new stuff. but - why not swap the diskmag in which you found your new contax' addresses? with the time you'll get lots of new and good diskmags and other scene-stuff that looking for stuff to send won't 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 don't 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, that's 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, it'll 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? don't hesitate to tell the editors of your preferred diskmag about them! a news-text doesn't 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 you've 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, you'll be warmly welcomed by most diskmag-staffs. send in your tunes, and if they are good enough and don't take too much disk-space, they'll 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 don't 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 isn't 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, it's a long way to go. the editor's 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 editor's 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, it's better not to start a diskmag of your own at once. at first you should participate in some existing mag(s), 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 don't 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 .......... adok^hugi 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/scene_pl/ - 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.