DT 01 en 16
From C64 Diskmag Wiki
+__________________________________ __+
| XX IN REVIEW: premium #2 |
| XX IN REVIEW: premium #2 |
| __________ |
| |
| _ released by: AXICON |
| _ releasedate: 99-07-03 |
| _ runs under : YES |
| emulator? |
+________________________________ __+
- AXICON suprised everyone with the release of their first issue of PREMIUM released in May, which brought more than just fresh wind into our magazine scene! Now without any further delays they kicked out issue number two. Time to take a closer look at this new magazine! ........................................ _ TECHNICAL REMARKS ___________________ The magsystem features a build in software speeder which (according to FIREFOX/AXICON) may cause problems in connection with some C64-Emulators.
Under CCS64 the loader worked perfectly without any crashes or something like that. Cartridges and other expansions are no problem, so you needn't turn off anything :). _ THE INTRO ___________ It comes up with an "AXICON" fullscreen logo pixeled in different blue shapes by BRAINSMASHER/CIVITAS/AXICON in his typical dark and groovy style. I like it. Second item is a 1x1 sinus scroller
containing greetings, credits and these things. Everything is underlined by one of SIDEWINDER/TMD's stylish groove tracks creating just the right atmospheare. Code is by CHECKY/AXICON/ ROLE/CENTRIC/PANIC. All in all this intro is certainly nothing special, but nice to see anyway. _ THE INTERFACE _______________ This time the crew went away from the lowres outfit in the main menu, replacing it by a graffiti styled multi- colour logo at the top and some moving
"axicon!" sprites at the bottom of the screen, both made by BRAINSMASHER. The borders are kept in dark gray, background and chars are still left in lightgray on black. I personally would have prefered to leave the borders in black colour, too, but on the other hand this fits quite well the colours of the logo which are light gray, gray and orange, while the sprites are kept in gray scales. Sumed up I would say that the annount of used colours is maybe a bit too low with too many gray coloured parts in it, but realization and style on the other hand realization and style are
really well done. The selection bar makes sure you'll always catch the right chapter without getting into any trouble with either too slow or much too fast joy pointers as it is still the case in some other mags. There is a nice fading effect displayed afer having chosen a chapter which reminds a bit of good old TIMENOTER. The blue shaped 2x2 multicolor font of the jumping "LOADING" Message looks a bit funny, reminding me a bit of some of my old logos :).
The Textviewer is working pagewise, looking a bit like OCTANOTER or the textviewer in good old UNPLUGGED magazine by U-TURN (still remember this one?), but works a lot of quicker than that one :). Sumed up, a solid and perfect working interface with a nearly 100% no crash- guarantee (check this out X-Dome Staff!) and this gives it a rating of 11/15. _ THE CHAPTERS ______________ As every good discmag also Premium heats things up with the Editorial.
Nextby to general Information about this issues FIREFOX gives the latest news on improvements in the magsystem and the latest happenings in the staff. Another important point is that AXICON is still in the need of more members, namely composers, graphicians and of course mageditors. Firefox is sending out this message espcially to members of inactive or even dying groups. Well, maybe it will work... Of course the Editorial also features the standard stuff like credits and last but not least infos on how to contact the staff.
All in all a solid informatic editorial containing all the information the reader needs. News & Rumours has undergone some important changes so far. It's now much better sorted and also the quality of news could be improved, thanks to the help of MAC GYVER/DMAGIC, their new news supplier. However there are also some false rumors and outdated stuff to be found here, but fortinately that does not concern the entire part. Quite a lot of Reactions from different sceneguys made their way into this issue
and FIREFOX really did his best in answering everybody on his questions and/or suggestions in detail. It's good to see somebody moving away from this "Thanx for your reaction & So long!" style other mageditors still have in mind. Next are some infos on Radwar Party 2000 by MWS/RADWAR, fetched from the Internet followed by an Interview RHOBA Q/AXICON led with his pal TSD/ANUBIS, a cracker from Poland. Hm, I have already read lots of different interviews during my scene career for sure, but somehow never one like this.
Unfortinately this is not ment in a posetive way! First of all any order in this text is missing, all text is simply written in one flash without leaving any space between the different passages or at least some outlets. A bit more of survey and maybe a "little bit" less craptalk during the whole interview would have been nice. Sure the interview does contain some interesting thoughts and aspects but also lots of stuff which is maybe interesting for polish scene dudes but not for the entirely scene! BARACUDA/SMASH tells the readers about The Stock History.
For the ones who still do not know, "The Stock" is a software service build up by him and some of his friends. The article starts with the latest news updates concerning The Stock and then continues with the groups history, connected with BARACUDA's own scene career story. The article is really full of interesting facts not only on The Stock and their founder himself but also on the entire scene in the old days, so it's more than worth reading. In some passages BARACUDA maybe gets a bit too much into detail however, but without making the article becoming too boring in any way.
The next chapter is called Red Rose (full name "Not a normal Red Rose"). Heheh, this one is really fun! It deals with girls and disappointed love. The author JONNY VAGO really sees parallels between his own experiences in this field and certain structures in our c64 scene. Quite an interesting comparision... Vago also critizises the media which are, in his opinion, painting a wrong picture of toays computer scene in some ways. Sometimes it's a bit hard to follow his thoughts, sometimes he gets a bit too emotional. The comparision between Love and the
modern Wrestling Industrie maybe does not fit into a c64 magazine, but is on the other hand quite an excellent one. In C64 & Internet JONNY VAGO introduces different possibilities the net offers also to c64 sceners in brief. Vago's conclusion that c64 scene cannot leave the Internet completely behind (although some dudes seemingly want to...) is surely right. Well, time will show... Anyway, this article gives Internet newcomers some interesting hints on how to spend their time in the net. But be careful with your phone bills, heheh!
Euroenglish is another article taken from the Internet and rewritten by RHOBA Q. It's a satire on the European Community and the English language. Just check out for yourself and enjoy! FIREFOX has some information For Cable Guys, here he shows the readers how to copy games originals via parallel copy, featuring lots of copy parameters for various games for use with the Burst Nibbler. Quite helpful for people with a huge games collection for sure. It's good to see at least one mag still dealing with the games sector.
In Homepages and Emails CHECKY
introduces the coders homepage
"The Fridge" by presenting all the
different possibilities this page is
offering to coders, each section is
described in brief. So why not taking
a look at sss.{{l2.|yg/{rbleq?
The FTP-List (featuring short
decriptions of each) as well as EMail
Adresses by quite a large variety of
sceners are included here, too.
Well, this chapter really derves its
name, differing from the mass of crappy
so-called "Email" Chapters in certain
other publications...
No let's jump into the Active Mailscene. This list contains the handles of various scners and their status of activity in swapping business. Hm, there must be some misprints in this list, e.g. I don't think MANIK/EX- REM is a "fast" swapper any more! OK, of course it's hard to keep such a list 100% objective, because what are terms like "fast" or "slow" swap anwyay? FIREFOX complains the support by the readers for this list still being on a low level. Maybe the majority of their readers do not need such a list? Time will show...
Sceners Voice is supposed to be some kind of communication forum for sceners, according to the staff there are no rules for this chapter, everything will be published. In a mag released on a weekly or monrhly basis such a chapter surely would make sense, but Premium "only" gets released every second month, so the danger of having outdated mails here is rather high. This times chapter is not that big, but of course this may differ from issue to issue. Scner's Voice is quite practical if you wanna buy or sell hardware, for for Lost Contacts and stuff like this.
For coummunication with other sceners you should better use standard ways (Email, phone, etc.). Guess what The Charts are about? This time twice as much sheets as for the first issue could be evaluated, this makes 40 sheets. OK, still no hammer, but anway spreaders and fillers seem to be on the right way...:). Also the layout has been improved by adding more postions and a better order. You're looking for the Adresspart? Well, then you'd better check out the Mediation Office.
The annount of addies has been, in contrast to the last issue, improved a lot, this surely depends of the larger annount of votesheets this time. The addies are clearly arranged, so you don't need a magnifying glass for reading through. The Music Corner features tunes by MOOG, ECO, DRAX, SYNDROM and ECLIPSE, but unfortinately no exclusive ones. OK, let's sum it up. The only chapter which is really distubring the posetive impression of the chapters is surely the TSD-Interview, but everything else can
only be rated as good quality scene journalism. Maybe "Sceners Voice" and "Active Mailscene" are a bit discussable but tastes are different, aren't they? Good quality journalism gets a good quality rating of 11/15. _ TEXT LAYOUT _____________ The magsystem just features one 1x1 magfont, made by CODE18/ONSLAUGHT. Some may claim that some of the quite small chars are a bit hard to read at least on TV sets. I personally had no problems in reading everything properly on my SHARP TV monitor, but this may be
different on others. Of course using just one font does not give you loads of possibilities of creative layouting, but on the other hand the danger of making any stupid mistakes in layout gets reduced to a minimum. Apart from some typing errors, e.g. in "Red Rose" and that badly arranged Interview there is nothing to complain concerning the layout, nearly all chapters feature a good general view and that's what makes reading comfortable. The staff made the best of on what the magsys offers, so 09/15 should be it.
_ SO WHAT...? _____________ Premium#1 was followed by many posetive reactions from the scene and with issue two it will be the same. AXICON are really on the right way to establish their magazine as one you don't wanna miss any more in the magazine scene. The regular two months releasing basis is probably their best weapon which will hopefully stay loaded in the future. The lack of support by the readers in some ways may be still a problem, but this seems to be just a question of time! "We'll never give up!", that's what FIREFOX said again and again.
_ FINAL RATING ______________ Intro..............................07/15 Interface..........................11/15 Chapters...........................11/15 Text Layout........................09/15 OVERALL............................10/15 ======================================== _______________________________SCORPE___
