Daskmig

By Adok/Hugi

Daskmig was a Norwegian diskmag released in the English language. The first five issues were published by the group Independents, which renamed to iSC. The last three issues were released by Inferiors (INF).

All Daskmig issues except #3 are available from scene.org, from where most of the issues have been downloaded about 600 times. With DOSBox, most of the issues work, except #8, which doesn't.

Daskmig #1

Daskmig #1, released in October 1994, was the first production of a small Norwegian group called Independents. Its main editor and coder was called Mr. Hockey, and the musician was Lash. The graphics and font were, as admitted in the editorial, ripped. There were a few articles about strange topics such as the psychological meaning of the word "once". In addition, the magazine contained demogroup charts. However, since there were only three voters, the editors asked the readers not to take them seriously.

Daskmig Illusions #2

Apart from the name, not much else had changed in Daskmig Illusions #2 (November 1994): The interface now featured smooth scrolling instead of text-fading, and music by Calvin of Proxima was used. The amount of texts, though, had remained about the same, and the number of voters had hardly increased. Among other texts, there were a list of Norwegian demogroup and an article about the "lame" scene in Norway. The charts featured the categories demogroups and demos. There were also an article about inspiration in music making and a list of trackers (programs).

Daskmig Illusions #4

Daskmig Illusions #4, from January 1995, was edited by Lash. It featured a restyled interface with two-column texts, mouse support and a progress bar. Hybris of Orchide had done the Daskmig logo, while the text-background had been calculated with a computer program. Unfortunately, the text was to hard read on it.

This issue had more articles than the previous ones. The dominating topic was a discussion about Lash having changed an article by Windy City / Proxima in Daskmig Illusions #3. This article was Windy's contribution to the discussion about the Norwegian scene. Lash felt that Windy was of the opinion that he and his group and were the best. So he altered Windy's article so that this presumed attitude was shown more clearly. This was a big mistake on Lash's part. Windy reacted fiercely in private mails and public bulletin boards. Lash published these reactions along with his comments in Daskmig Illusions #4. In addition, the experience inspired him to write an article entitled "Diskmag editor power".

There were also reviews of the demos at Juhla 1995 and an interview with Frog Fuzz of Nocturnal. The charts categories were demogroups, demos, Norwegian groups and intros. There were tutorials about the basics of demo-coding (only interesting for people who are really new to this matter) and about how to obtain samples for tracked music. All in all, it was quite a good issue compared to other diskmags of those days.

Daskmig Illusions #5

Lash did not feel the need to reconcile with Windy City, but, instead, kept calling him names. As a result, the discussion did not end there, but was continued in Daskmig Illusions #5 (March 1995). In the editorial, Lash explicitly remarked that the mag was not to be taken seriously, but that was no excuse for his behaviour towards Windy.

Aside from this episode, Daskmig's number of articles had grown again. It was no longer just an iSC production, as Inferiors (INF) now belonged to the staff as well. Dominei of INF published his first articles in this issue. The number of voters had also climbed to another record: 23.

Nothing had changed technically apart from a new Daskmig logo and a new intro with graphics from TMK of INF.

There were interviews with Windy of Proxima and with The Priest. The serious articles dealt with scanning and copying graphics, why anarchy doesn't work and the meaning of life. The charts categories were demogroups, Norwegian groups, demos and intros.

Daskmig #6

After Daskmig Illusions #5, the quarrel with Windy City reached another climax, which almost killed the diskmag. iSC felt that their readers did not understand that the magazine was meant to be humorous. After all, each of the iSC members was between 20 and 30 years old. People from this age were expected to behave a little more seriously. Discouraged because of this feedback, iSC went inactive.

So that they would not let the fascinated readers down, Inferiors asked iSC to pass the right of the name "Daskmig" to them. They got it. Thus, Daskmig continued to live, with INF as its makers.

Actually the new Daskmig did not have much in common with the old Daskmig Illusions. It was a new diskmag, with a new interface running in SVGA, new editors, and new topics. The golden period of Daskmig had begun. Within a short time, the mag was to become popular worldwide.

The new main editor was Dominei of INF, supported by Hybris of Orchide and Calvin of Proxima (who later joined INF). Daskmig's new graphician was TMK of INF. A French and a Swedish section of the Daskmig staff were formed. In addition, lots of people outside the staff supported the magazine with articles and music.

Daskmig #6 was released in May 1995, one month before Imphobia #10. The aim of the staff was to create a monthly magazine with quality articles as opposed to Imphobia, whose number of articles was as huge as the time between issues.

However, this goal was not reached. The period between Daskmig #6 and its sequel was nearly two months. The same applied to Daskmig #7 and the eighth issue. Nevertheless this did not stop the success of Daskmig.

An important part of the success of the mag is probably its style. While Imphobia was pretty serious most of the time (perhaps because the authors did not know how to express irony in English), the new Daskmig had kept one thing from the old Daskmig Illusions: humour. While the humour was a little off the wall from time to time, it rarely became childish and remained refreshing.

The graphics were made by TMK of INF. The music came from Kane Wood of Arkham, Calvin of Proxima and Dominei of INF. The new engine of Daskmig was one the first diskmag engines on PC that supported inline-images inside the articles. There were reviews of 4k and 64k intros from The Gathering 1995 as well as party reports. The interview partners of this issue were Adept of Scoop and Oxyd of The Ultimate. A coding article dealt with flat-mode. All in all, it was quite a good issue.

Daskmig #7

Daskmig #7 was released in July 1995. With excellent graphics by TMK of INF and music by Outzider of Darkzone and Substance of Illusion, it was quite impressive. There were articles about various trends in the scene, such as the scene getting commercialized, and a French scene report. Two coding articles dealt with the subject of filling polygons. There were interviews with BigJim of Valhalla, ReeBoK of Surprise!Productions, Gandalf of Infiny and Kaiowa of Sorrox. The Misc corner mostly dealt with music.

While Daskmig #6 had no charts, this issue had some. They were based on the votes of 78 people. The categories were: demogroups, demos, intros, coders, musicians, graphicians, phrases and demoparties.

Another good issue all in all.

Daskmig #8

The disaster happened after Daskmig #7. Dominei left the staff due to unknown reasons. He told me later that he was unsatisfied after doing most of the work and having Calvin get all the fame for Daskmig. Hybris and Calvin were not at all pleased with this abrupt split. Hybris had to write the editorial as a substitute for Dominei. In the end, the whole magazine turned out to be more serious than the staff had wanted it to be. This prompted Calvin write in the infofile: "Enjoy this mag. We hated making it."

Daskmig #8, from September 1995, was the last issue of Daskmig. Soon after that, Calvin officially left the scene and dropped his handle.

Daskmig 2000

In 1998/1999, rumour had it that there were plans to resume Daskmig as a CD-ROM magazine called "Daskmig 2000". But these plans didn't materialize.

Adok/Hugi