International Diskmag Encyclopedia

Welcome to a special section inside Hugi #35. This section is called "International Diskmag Encyclopedia". It contains reviews of many PC demoscene-related diskmags that were either published fully in the English language or at least had an English corner. I introduce the mags, give you the basic facts such as release period, editing team and numbers of downloads, then I review all relevant issues one by one. Note: I don't review magazines that are related only to the ANSI, VGA, music, hacker or warez scenes without any connection to the demoscene.

The reason why I made this special section is simple: Such a thing didn't exist in the scene yet. I myself would have been very interested in such an encyclopedia though. And I guess I'm not the only one who likes to read about old diskmags.

But some of you will perhaps ask why one should care about old diskmags at all. For these people I want to quote a statement by Seven, which was published in Static Line #21 (May 2000):

"As a writer for Static line and the former version of DemoJournal, I can assure you that a diskmag DEFINITELY is a contribution to the demoscene <Grin>. The point I wanted to make: diskmags are not just a mean of communication, they are also archives of the demo-scene history.

My first contact with the scene was via the 'PC underground' book, which came with a CD with demos and one issue of Imphobia. The demos blew me away, but reading Imphobia 7 really showed me the community of sceners behind the demos. When I got the Hornet CD, I read all 122 issues of DemoNews on it, and that way I learned the major trends and events that happened years before. For example, everyone knows that Future Crew made the fantastic Second Reality demo, that won Assembly 93. But how many people know that Future Crew, as the PC organizers of Assembly'93, changed the compo-machine to a more powerful CPU, presumably because Second Reality needed it? And that there was a problem with the SoundBlaster Pro, playing only in mono, except for the last demo (Second Reality) which used a lot of stereo effects? I know that articles are not always 100% true, so you have to be careful about what you believe, but now I understand why some people think so negatively about Future Crew. For a newbie, this kind of knowledge is near to impossible to get just by reading newsgroups or chatting on IRC. The only way is to read old diskmags, something that I encourage everyone to do :)"

This is the first part of the diskmag encyclopedia. The second part will be published in Hugi #36.

Diskmags featured in part 1: Amber, Amnesia, AnotherMag, Armor of the Gods, Autark, Bad News, Becanne, Belgian Scene Report, Budyn, Bytes of Wisdom, Caustic Verses, CFX News, Channel, Cheese, Contrast, Daskmig, Defcon, Delta, Demojournal, DemoNews, Dragon, Eedmag, Eurochart, Flash, Fleur, Fuzzby, Genetic Dreams, Heroin, Hoax, Imphobia, Infinity, Infused Bytes, Insight, Lookain Fanz, Luna, Maniac, Mudia Art, New World Order, Obtain.

Diskmags featured in part 2 (Hugi #36): Pain, Palantir, Parrot, Planet, Public Incantation, Pulse, Restless, Rift, Savage Charts, Scenial, Shine, Showtime, Smok, Splash, Static Line, Subkult, Sunray, Tankard, Testimony of the Ancients, The Scene Post, The Utopians News, Total Disaster, Totem, Trip, Trip 2 Hell, TUHBzine, Userflag, Vinyl, v.O.L.V.o, What?!, Wilby, Worldcharts (Future Crew), Worldcharts (Hoodlum), Xtravaganza, Yahoo, Zen Little Tattles, Zine.