AMIGA FORMAT MAGAZINE 


    BIO:  My name is Andrew Chapman, and I'm 15 years old. I own a 1.3
   A500 with a printer, 2 drives a HUGE stash of disks. As soon as I save
   enough money I'll be getting one of the new A-1200 magic machines.


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   A year ago I began buying a computer magazine. It went by the name of ACE
  (Advanced Computer Entertainment-I think) and it was an all games mag
  shared between AMIGA, IBM and Atari ST. Two issues later they stopped
  publishing ACE because the writing team was switching to another magazine
  ('THE ONE For Amiga games). So anyway, I began to look for another
  magazine on which to spend my money. I wandered into my local newsagency,
  cash in hand, and gazed upon the plethora of magazines for the Amiga. I
  had no idea which one to try until my eyes glazed over the magic words "The
  World's Best Selling Amiga Magazine" and hey presto -- I had succumbed to
  advertising. But hey, I had to start somewhere so I handed over the $13.10
  and walked briskly out of the store. The price was nearly twice what I had
  paid for ACE, and nearly four times the price of ACAR (which I buy
  occasionally) but this one had two disks on the cover (one with a
  'Full-priced' program - supposedly valued at £60), and it was THICK (my
  thickest is 274 pages!)

   I took it home, plonked it onto the kitchen table, and read. With each
  page I began to love the mag. It gave me news, views, reviews (anything
  ending in oo's really). After reading it's major feature for that month on
  animation, I began my own first efforts using DPaintIII. I read every
  square inch of that magazine, cover to glorious cover, and used the two
  coverdisks till my disk drives bled. And the greatest thing is, its ALL
  AMIGA !!!!.

   Okay, enough about my first experiences with the mag, and onto the facts.
  It is pretty evenly split between the games and 'serious' sides of the
  Amiga, and it covers every use I can think of; from games to programming,
  graphics to hardware, its all in there somewhere. Each month it has a
  major feature on one aspect of the Amiga such as Animation, DTP, Graphics
  or programming, for example. I think its fair to say that if I hadn't
  stumbled upon Amiga Format I would still be a 'gamesplayer'.  Over the last
  11 issues (every one I own - what an amazing coincidence !?!) the magazine
  has been running the "Amiga Format Collection". What this is is a second
  coverdisk containing a full-priced program - I have included a list.

    Issue    Program              Description

    33    Vista             (Amazing fractal landscape generator)
    34    Pagesetter        (DTP)
    35    SpectraColour Jr   (HAM Paint Program)
    36    CanDo             (Software Authoring System/Language)
    37    Animation Station (Animation Sequencer)
    38    IntroCAD          (Computer Aided Design)
    39    DevPac2           (Assembly language)
    40    CrossDos 4        (File transfer between IBM & AMIGA)
          TV Text           (Video Titling)
    41    Scribble!         (Word Processor)
    42    AMOS              (Language)
    43    ProData           (Database)

   This has been fine while it lasted, but in the latest issue they announced
  that they won't be giving these away on a regular basis anymore; but they
  have dropped the price a little.

   Regular features of the mag include: News, Games Reviews, 'Serious'
  software & hardware reviews, Competitions, PD Update, PD Demo Zone, Help
  with WorkBench, Answerfile, Letters and a Mail-order catalog. Quite a
  common list really, but it is the special feature articles, tutorials, &
  in-depth explanations that it gives that make it special.

   The only bad points I can think of about this magazine is the copious
  amount of advertising they include, and the fact that it arrives in
  Australia two months late (e.g. February issue arrived April 6th).
  Neither of these problems are really that bad though: The ads are often
  good to read, and unless you own a modem (mine died a few months ago-RIP)
  this is probably going to be the first place you hear your news.

   So, if there is anybody out there looking for a good paper magazine, look
  no further that Amiga Format. But, err look a little further than issue 43
  (Feb 93) because it is a bit poor compared to previous issues.  If I ever
  had to choose between Amiga Format and MEGADISC though, MD would win hands
  down, its a completely different setup, and a brilliant one at that.

                                  Keep up the good work MEGADISC.


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