Skyhigh 20 Ode to Skyhigh by Nastiness Inc./Angry

Ode to Skyhigh by Nastiness Inc./Angry



Locked away in the safety of your room you play
around, gigabytes at your disposal, millions of col-
ours, 64 bit sound thousands of dollars of hardware
the world at your finger tips the cyberworld of your
own.

Then you see you don't need it
The gigabytes disappear
The colours reduce
The sound becomes blurry
The tower collapses, the keyboard grows
You touch the old keys,
and find out you have to press them a bit harder
Why are those disks so big?
Are we back in the stone age?

No, we enjoy the simplicity
Yet we strive to abandon it,
but deep down inside comes that feeling
That things will never be the same
Contacts instead of the internet
Floppy's instead of gigabytes
Envelopes instead of a mouse
and yet, what does it mean?
Welcome to the c64
The eternal breadbox

Twenty issues of Skyhigh. Some call it the coming of
age but what a big man this has become! I remember
the 20th issue of The Tribune, on October the first
1991, and it was something special as it was our first
multi-file issue.
And this is also of course something special, the
directories will say it all! Three years old, and al-
ready so much on its record! I remember well the 1st
Skyhigh I got into my drive. It was issue #5, and short
ly before that I had found a sheet for this magazine
and I filled it, though I'd never seen it. Some good
contact of mine sent me the mag, with its unpacked
text and two disk sides. I remember it well because
the main editor, one Biz Kid, had completely fucked up
my addy. How? Well here's the original and what Biz
Kid made of it:

Tmb Produkties              Tmb Produkties
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX              XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Funny thing is that later Mr. Warp of Equinoxe wrote
to the raped addy and it arrived, but that's another
story. I met Biz Kid briefly on the TCC'93 and I got all
the issues of Skyhigh, as I liked the mag. Even in that
old issue #5 I saw the power behind the editor and his
great column "The Biz-mix". More and more people saw
that this mag was cool, it only had a small problem
many mags at that time had: the outfit. Fortunately
Biz Kid had a good friend in Camelot called Raz who
coded him a nice outfit and it ewas Skyhigh, the next
generation which stormed the scene. At this time many
great mags came and left. Script, Network, Sh0ck,
A-Head, Extacy Land...
Where did they go? Skyhigh remained and lived up to
its name at the max. In no time it became the mail-
scene's most popular mag and would stay this, the
undisputed number one.
We have seen three years of Skyhigh and the outfit
was no longer a problem, it even became the first mag
with a smooth proportional upscroll, also coded by
Raz, and the editing power increased, weeding out
some mistakes and gaining fresh and new editors.
some say Biz Kid should really do it all alone as he is
such a good editor but give some credit to his col-
leagues! Some say that Skyhigh is over the hill and
that other mags are coming for his number one spot
but then you see votesheets and charts and voila,
Skyhigh can stand above that all clearly and unrival-
led.

What is the power of this magazine?
It does not have the very latest news from the board
scene, the charts are normal, the "specials" such as
games and pictures in my eyes do not do much for the
mag itself. You don't dig between the lines to find out
what it really says, as it reads smoothly. of course
there are very many addies though there seem to be
the (very normal) problems with updating. Tunes and
outfit do not make such a big difference. Then what
is it? Why is Skyhigh the clear number 1? Naturally,
the answer is clear:
There is nothing and that's what it is.
Skyhigh is the mag for everybody, from all parts of
the scene, mostly neutral to scene events, written in
a style that suits the editor: friendly if he can,
straight to the point and tough if he must. To tell you
the truth, I really don't think Biz Kid is concerned
with all the talk about skyhigh not lasting much long
er as the undisputed number one, he knows himself
that he does the best he can, and so do his fellow
editors like Mad, Cupid and Shuze. I will not write here
about The Mistress's effort as that wouldn't be very
impartial as she is also my fellow staff editor as
everyone knows.

People have gone to great lengths in order to improve
their magazines, changed outfits, installed and re-
moved chapters, took and sacked editors, but
Skyhigh does what it wants and does a hell of a job
doing it. Sure, it's the mag to beat for the competition
but  the  way things go  there is  no  competition for
Skyhigh. You know, Skyhigh means very high, and that
is where Skyhigh is always going to stand.
Congratulations all of you in the Skyhigh staff, keep
up the good work and I am going to drink a budweiser
to your next twenty issues!

signed: Nastiness, Inc. / Angry
Staff editor of "The Tribune"


Ps: if you ask me if there's anything left to improve
then I'd say become a 100% mag and cut the games
and graphics. And be sure to leave some disk space
on your disk so spreaders can add their notes to the
contacts. When is the next Tunehigh coming? Maybe it
could be made possible to enter tunes with different
players (dual/quadro/octa), that would make the
music even better. See ya! /Naz

--------------------------------------------

Yo this is Biz Kid on the keys...

I would like to thank you Barry for this nice text. I
think you are touching something very essential here.
I see my mag as a mag for the entire scene, or at
least for a very wide spectre of the scene... - well
you are right, our news aren't that fresh, and some
of your other points have some truth in it as well.
About me not concerning about all the talk about
Skyhigh not lasting..
Well you are absolutely right. I don't really feel
threatned. I know that the charts has talked the last
year, or maybe even more!!, and I will see it before I
believe it. Maybe I have had my moments, maybe not. I
will stay on the top for a time to come. At the moment
I feel even more inspired than I ever did. So watch
out for a real hard competition all u board magazines.

Finally I will on the behalf of my staff and me, thank
you for this article. I know that you are touching
something inside most of us and gives us another
refreshing kick in our behinds!

Be sure to find us in the future !!!


BIZ KID