The first slow turn of the Megadisc   


   Scott Castledine writes, including a copy of a letter which is a blast
  from the past!

Dear Ed,

   Thought you and your readers may be interested in a letter (one of only
  two) I found on an American disk magazine from way back in December 1986.
  A time when the A1000 WAS the Amiga, version 1.2 of Kickstart and Workbench
  were about to be released and 256K of RAM was installed in the base machine
  (in the U.S., at least)! See if anyone can recognise the style of
  writing....


********************

Dear AMIGAZINE!

     I am one of the small but rapidly growing band of Amiga owners
downunder (in fact I think that there are thousands or will soon be) and
like any reasonable person who looks at the machine, I quickly realized that
it was the future of computing.  My partner and I both bought our machines
about six months ago and have been using them intensively, and we have
decided that we should emulate the excellent example that you have given us
by producing a disk magazine.  We have seen one issue of yours (Oct'86) and
are reeling in admiration at the usefulness of it, the openness of it and
above all the fact that on a price per unit basis, it represents serious
value, especially compared to the papyrus rolls that normally pass for
magazines.

     So in the spirit of friendly exchange, we were wondering if anybody
there on the probably overworked staff could take the time to reply to this
letter.  I can't be entirely precise about what we'd like you to tell us
except to say that we'd appreciate any advice, suggestions, approaches,
business angles and trade secrets that you'd care to tell us.  It would be
nice for example if we could devote our full time to this and spin-off
ventures, but could it be made to support us in the early stages?

     We are in Sydney which is the point of the Australian boomerang, and
have a lot of contacts of various kinds already in the Amiga field.  I
believe that there could be a good interchange globally among Amiga users
(for example, your diskmag has done me good) and we could certainly promote
you here as part of our operation.  The global network is upon us and we in
Australia should be doing our bit, as you are, to improve that network. In
fact we are in the process of setting up an Amiga BBS here, so that
eventually we'll be able to communicate more directly.


Tim Strachan
North Sydney, Australia


     We are very flattered you want to emulate AMIGAZINE!  Publishing a
magazine, especially a disk magazine, is not a simple undertaking. Although
there are already several thousand Amiga owners in Australia, you'll
probably need to reach most of them  in order to be viable as a business
unless you plan on distributing internationally.  Inventory the experience
and ability of yourself and your partners.  No matter how much money you
have to start your potential venture prepare to wear many hats and put in
what seems like endless hours.  In short, you'd better enjoy what you're
going to do.  There are easier ways to make a living, but the Amiga
community needs dedicated people who have the machine and its users in mind.

 It's hard to offer many specifics because we don't know all your
circumstances.  Generally, keep your operating costs as low as possible, but
be prepared to invest your resources as fully as needed in the things that
count: CONTENT, CONTENT, and CONTENT.  No meat will get you no readers. We
are fortunate to have subscribers not only across North America, but around
the world, including subscribers in the Sydney and Perth areas of Australia.

 Make sure you do your homework first.  Good luck!

 By the way, don't be so hard on the paper magazines.  We have some good
ones here in the U.S. in spite of their paper-only limitations.


EDITOR


********************


   Now isn't that interesting? Who'd have ever known that Megadisc would
  become so big and so popular back then? I'm just glad you and your team
  decided to take the plunge and there was enough support to warrant the
  venture. By the way, does "Amigazine" still exist? I haven't heard of it
  in years - not that I think their "CONTENT, CONTENT, and CONTENT" would
  draw me away from Megadisc - which is definitely not short on the "MEAT",
  supporting local talent, reporting local news and prices and most
  importantly, not dedicating more than a small percentage of content to
  games!

   I was one of those "rapidly growing band" of Amiga owners back in 1986 and
  must have bought my machine at around the same time as the Megadisc Team.
  After nearly seven years with my machine (in various configurations), I'M
  STILL LEARNING AND FIND MEGADISC A VERY VALUABLE RESOURCE!!

   Insertion of the obligatory and proverbial CONGRATULATIONS et cetera,
  here!



   Ed: Thanks, Scott, I'd forgotten about that letter! I'm glad I took the
  plunge, too, because I've made a living from it and enjoyed it immensely.
  Thanks to all you buyers and contributors for that!

   Amigazine went out of business within a year of that letter, partly
  because they began to lose interesting content. But it was still the best
  disk-mag from overseas, and was definitely the inspiration for Megadisc,
  even though MD has come to look and feel pretty different.

Scott Castledine
New Town, Tasmania.


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