b1a0tAmiga Zines for PC-ReaderstHugi & RokDaZonethps1f2c01 Amiga ScenZines for PC-Readers f3c04aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa f1c03The following are extracts of an interview Adok from the PC-ScenZine Hugi made with me - RokDaZone - which I friendly was allowed to use in Generation aswell. Of course the parts about myself are cut out as they are of no further relevance, but information about the past of ScenZines about the making of Generation can be found below. I answered the questions three month ago, so some info might appear outdated. f3c04aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa f1c04Adok:f4c02 RokDaZone is the main editor of the Amiga diskmag Generation. I decided to interview him about the situation of the Amiga diskmagscene and its differences to the PC. As the main editor of Generation, you are pretty much involved in the Amiga diskmagscene. Can you give us a short (or longer) description of the history and development of Amiga diskmags? f1c04RokDaZone:f4c03 "We have to be aware that actually diskmags evolved from scrollers in old C64 demos. Also on Amiga, the first way for masscommunication were these scrollwritings and not seldomly, scrolltexts expanded to a length of 50+ kbyte. Still this was by far unsatisfying and so the first mag popped up which was (afaik) 'Cracker Journal'. Very limited in its functions, it only was a mere slideshow and the articles had no ASCII-source but were typed in directly into a graphicprogram and saved as IFF-data. Under regard that those were the times of 700kb floppy disks and only rudimentary packing algorhythms, you might get the picture about the amount of articles in there. Several other projects followed up in 1988 and 1989 such as 'News On Tour' by Red Sector (who later became TRSI), but it needed another year until 'Zine' broke all barriers and set new standards for diskmags - a wave of dying diskmags followed. 'Zine' for the first time had real tabloid character and introduced yellowpress to the Amiga. Then the big battle between 'Stolen Data', 'Zine' and 'R.A.W.' began. 'R.A.W.' won in 1991, 'Stolen Data' made it to the second and 'Zine' died short after. When 'Stolen Data' died in 1992, I joined 'R.A.W.' and saw a new second placed mag, which also never managed to beat 'R.A.W.' in the charts: 'Upstream' was the name. Important to mention surely 'Abnormalia' the italian based magazine under Macno from 1992. Macno was eccentric but also a genious in writing. His narrative skills are still unbeaten and for two glorious years, the absolute core of writers (including me as co-editor, pardon) worked for it. Macno introduced writingtechniques and -style to the writingguild which so far rather published on a personal speech level. Lord Helmet - mained for 'R.A.W.' broke any rules of tact and nicety and put success to the throne. He was a professional, but didn't survive the fight against Hydra/Andromeda, leader of probably the best Amiga-group ever. When Helmet accused him to be the 'Stalin of the Scene', he found the wrong foe in Hydra, who intelectually and rigorously knocked him out. 'R.A.W.' lateron had a revival in 1995 and changed main-editor, but was laid to rest in 1996, after one of its ex-coeditors pulled 'R.A.W.' from the first place in the charts with his mag 'R.O.M.' after three years of constantly being number one. This guy should be know in the PC-Scene: It's Mop who also wrote for Imphobia. At The Party'95 I took over the former messagebox Generation and integrated a magpart together with the original maineditor Damion. The magpart grew, the messagesection died and nowadays, Generation holds the second place in its second year, while 'R.O.M.' still holds the first place. Another mag which shouldn't be forgotten is Seenpoint, nowadays put to the third place and arch-enemy of 'Generation' while we still collaborate against 'R.O.M.'. The latest hope in 'Insomnia' which just celebrated its second issue." f4c02What does the situation in the Amiga diskmagscene look like nowadays? How many diskmags are active? How many well-known mags exist? What are the most popular mags? c03"Like in many other categories aswell, we have a lot of living deads in our charts, so you still can see R.A.W. on the lower places. Active by now I would say are: Generation, Seenpoint, Retro, Insomnia, Trashcan, Showtime, Eurocharts and Excees (polish only). Semi-active is Jurassic Pack, Oepir Risti and Rage! with irregular releases every now and then. Died away lately seems to be R.O.M. The most popular are R.O.M. (falling), Generation, Seenpoint, Showtime and Insomnia." f4c02What role do diskmags have in the Amiga scene? How are they accepted by the sceners? c03"Although it might sound strange: Mags are a major concern in the Amiga-Scene. There are many people who almost exclusivly work for ScenZines (like we call them today) and it's true: Generation even has an entire section only for editors. We expected the IRC to cut down the need for magazines, but actually rather the opposite happened as rumours spread on IRC and email are mostly opposing so that mags are needed for clarification. Moreover infotainment is not an empty wordshell in our Scene. How is that on PC?"