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Maggie Moments!
Where someone who should know better, foolishly picks some of the best (according to his odd and subjective viewpoint) moments to come from the pages of the Maggie diskmag.
He's doing it right from the very beginning, in issue one, to the final sort of delayed 10th anniversary release at the STNICCC 10th anniversary party. So this is going to be a big article. Still, would you have it any other way?
And so we start at the very beginning with..
Issue 1..
May 31st 1990 is when it all begins. Take one German youth named Sammy Joe stranded in Teddington, Middlesex, weeks away from celebrating his seventeenth birthday. Take some language that's likely to 'offend the odd parent'. Stir in a dash of GFA coding, some old school rastery things, and you get issue one of the 'Maggy' diskmag.
The over-used term 'eclectic' stands as a reasonable to middling description of the contents. A swathe of game reviews from Sammy Joe's ST-owning neighbour, some detailed demo reviews including the just released Mindbomb demo and more from Sammy Joe and friends. There is quite a bit of 'Maggy' devoted to the Lost Boys PD Library, no trips away as yet.
Best moment: Quite an accomplished piss-take of some bits of the bible by Harvey Lodder, God vs Moses vs a burning hatstand. Gets in a very early reference to the 'Greenhouse effect'.
Runner-up: An astoundingly well collected and written interview with Rob Hay of the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST). During the course of which, Sammy Joe managed to consume half a roll of toilet paper among other things.
Nice easter egg: Three lovely old school intro's runnable direct from the menu shell!
Issue 2..
(Me- Goes to reset the Hatari emulator, as it chokes on running early Maggie issues with my default configuration of a TOS 2.06 STE. -Hatari - "Really reset? -Me - "Yes, reset the virtual ST? -Hatari - "Really really reset?" -Me- "JUST RESET THE F*CKING MACHINE!" -Hatari -"Really? You want to really reset?")
Intro steps up a gear or ten: The Lost Boys non-diskmag writing parts of the team kick out a pantaloon-filling intro to this Maggie, with their Cebit 90 celebration of all things polygonal. Sammy Joe's hair falls out with amazement!
Soundchip wizardry - Yes, there's another ST sound chip musician other than Jochen Hippel for 1990, as a mysterious zero-rated aristocrat makes an exciting and inspiring audio debut in Maggie issue 2.
Issue 2 is a much more rounded release, article wise. There's even an inauspicious debut from yours truly, somehow inspired by the fine words in Maggie 1 to do something for this one. It got out of control from there. Elsewhere, a massive slew of games reviews, some demos, the return of 'The Bible', the debut of Mutant monthly, and quite a lot of slagging off of the 'Overlamers' by members of another French group. This was claimed to be a 'friendly' rivalry a bit later on, but going on the tone of some of these articles, I'm not so sure?
Best moment: An actual realtime text, from the ICC part one. Many of the great and good of the golden oldie demo scene are here. The standard of writing is surprisingly good and informative, especially compared with a lot of later efforts. The latter end is distinctly padded with greets and lists though.
Runner-Up: One lonely Swiss Atari fan's pilgrimage to TLB-HQ in Teddington is written up in loving careful detail, including the drunken bits, especially the drunken bits.
Issue 3..
Yet another change in format, as the number of contributions in various areas threatens to overwhelm the tracks and sectors of even the most exotically formatted floppy disk. For this issue only, issue 3 sprawls lazily onto a second disk! Oh look, Sammy Joe seems to have fixed the STE non-compatibility as well. Which is nice for me playing around endlessly with Hatari configs for the first two.
As Maggie is getting better known, there's more of everything this issue, more intro's, several trip and party reports in several parts. A flood of interviews, including the first 'Dead Celebrity' Nicolai Ceausescu. And several game reviews, cobbled together in a hurry by me, when Sammy Joe realised he had none and this issue was due out real soon!
Best moment: Mutant Monthly part 2, thirty two pages of streaming consciousness, Cowabunga Comrades!
Runner-Up: Sammy Joe and friends are very very hormonal in Marseilles for the Next / Replicants Summer Convention. Just that throwing up out of a train window might spoil his seduction technique?
Wise words from Sammy Joe - "Never ever get the beer STELLA, it tastes like piss!!!!"
Issue 4..
Finally a proper music 'off' button!
It's a Xmas issue, with a revamped text displayer, smoother and less fugly. Still the same four colour GFA coded front end. But it's got a nice Xmassy scene! It's not summer anymore, so not any high jinks from young demo sceners on their summer holidays. We get a sensational debut from one 'Leon O'Reilly' though, with his fearless expose of an innocent sheep's ordeal at the depraved hands of a well known musical Carebear. For Flossy the Sheep, life was never the same!
Best moment(?) In an end of year summing up sort of article called 'Rottspott', there was an interesting paragraph, by me, which sort of predicted the death of the UK entertainment software industry with the growth of the (then) 16-bit generation of consoles, via the closed developer/system concept, without quite realising the full impact of this.
Runner-Up: Bilbo and Stick of Ripped Off offer a prototype version of the monster that was to become "Top Gear' in textual form and without any sort of budget. Clarksonian insights into the lame state of other road users and how to handle a 1980's 'hot-hatch' car abound.
Sample conversation on a train as a young Leon O'Reilly learns to prioritise..
"If we start moving before he comes back, I'm going to throw that case out of the window" Says Dylan. "Yes, my TCB Tracker may get damaged." (Leon) "Fuck your TCB Tracker, I don't want to be the IRA's latest victim!"
Issue 5..
This was billed as the 'anniversary issue'. Sammy Joe is due his 18th anniversary, he points out he can then go to the pub 'legally'. He already goes constantly without worrying about the legal stuff.
After the excitement and high-jinks of the previous issues, this one seemed to be a little quieter and more subdued. Perhaps reflecting the editor in chief's impending move back to the Fatherland, away from the distractions and socialising of Teddington?
Rather than the bright laughter of summer coding conventions, we get to see more focused show reports, such as Cebit 91 the All Formats Fair and the Computer Shopper Show. Well the middle one of those was by a Mutant Turtle, so not completely serious then. There are a fair number of coding related articles, and even how to make a career out of your computer. A slew of games reviews and interviews with some interesting Sub Human People from Turkey are the other highlights here.
Best Moment: Mr O'Reilly is on the case, with a wry look at Ocean Software's quality control process, where he implies it works sort of backwards from other peoples. Strangely, I didn't find any mention of the game 'Blaselen' in the recently published bumper memoir book about Ocean Software! (Oh, I forgot, it eventually became Robocop 3!)
Runner-Up: A triple helping of Turrican reviewing, some of which didn't quite come off in the previous issue of Maggie, reviews from myself and Mr Pink, who both managed to convey some considerable degree of enthusiasm about this game.
Issue 6..
There was no issue 6. Popular speculation has it that the intended Maggie 6 was going to be somewhat different from the normal run of issues. It successfully differed by not appearing in any shape or form at all.
Suggestions that I dedicate or name this 25th Anniversary issue of Maggie to the missing issue 6 have been quietly kicked to death.
Issue 7..
Where Sammy Joe has had too much fun, failed college and has returned to Germany.
Issue seven was seen as a placeholder issue, especially by its editor. There is certainly a big crash in all departments for the contributions. In fact this was described as the left-overs from issues 4 and 5. An awful lot of my contributions seem to refer to Maggie issue 5?
Best Bit(s): Leon O'Reilly takes on the Inner Circle's attempt to rise to the top of the UK Atari Demo scene, with a detailed look at The Decade Demo. There is another article elsewhere in this issue, which also throws the Lost Boys and Inner Circle rivalry into even sharper relief.
Runner Up: I was getting additional contributors from all sorts of places. One such person, forgotten about until now was an ex-schoolfriend and horror movie fanatic Pete Lynch, who nicely wrote up his long hot summer time at a 24 hour screening of reel to reel classic horror and slasher movies at the Fear Festival.
Showstopper - CiH goes to a Shopper show at Alexandra Palace, watches a Carebear get chainsawed in half with an enthralled gathering of the Atari Demoscene great and good and meets Jez 'Argonaut' San.
Issue 8..
Running the intro broke Hatari!
If people were concerned with the declining state of health for Maggie issue 7, all these doubts were dispelled by the huge roar that came from the belly of issue 8.
There were two versions of this, a final incarnation of the classic GEM menu shell that had graced previous issues of Maggie, but better still, the second version featured an awesome brand new custom shell from the coding hands of Delta Force, Maggie's new owners. A gorgeous sixteen colour menu and picture were there, and a completely smooth and feature packed text displayer This was clearly the new generation and new way of doing things for diskmags. And so it proved, as it remained the menu shell of choice, with some heavy modifications later on, right until the end for the ST version.
As for the contents, there was a surge of these too, including quite a lot that didn't make it into some earlier Maggies? There was a swan-song from some old Maggie stalwarts such as Mutant Monthly. This was the last issue with Sammy Joe in any sort of strength. Times were changing and the new management would make their presence felt even more in the following two issues. But this was an issue at the top of its game. Maggie had reached the next level!
Best Bit: Leon O'Reilly manages to cause a stir with his confident prediction for the future of home computing, Atari style, with the future release of the Atari STEE! This managed to include a lot of stuff that ended up in the Falcon 030, and a fair bit which would have had no chance of doing so ("64-Bit Jaguar technology"?) We were showing off Maggie 8 and the new menu shell at a 16-Bit Fair, Atari were out in force and they were very interested. So interested that they took a copy away with them. Next month, an exclusive hot story appears in print magazine 'ST Format' about the exciting new "Atari STEE"!
Runner-Up: ICC 2 - Bilbo and Stick of Ripped off go to the second Delta Force ICC. Stick loses his passport and has to blag his way back into the UK past a suspicious border control!
Issue 9..
It starts promisingly enough, a really decent intro featuring a sort of textured dithered thick line vector cube with some really neat colour choices. A very nice piece of design work which would not be out of place in a current demo. It also did not crash Hatari on exiting to the mag shell!
Delta Force have settled in properly now. There is a real feeling that without Sammy Joe's personal touch vis contributors, the original Maggie spirit has mostly faded away. There is a big crash again in the number of articles, although there are some nice show reports and reviews. And a couple of articles by Alan Johnstone. There is a renewed emphasis on "Lamers" versus "Cool people" by the new management. There is a little jism-splat of a textile stuffed in randomly, a precursor to the 'Adults Only' section in Issue 10.
We get the first proper mention of the phenomenon that was the Atari Falcon directly here, as opposed to the confused rumours that abounded in issue 8.
Best Bit: This rule of universal truth is trotted out in a random summing up the year article by CiH. When The Lost Boys were announcing their retirement, he queried how you would know for sure that a demo group was going out of contention permanently. Answered thus "After doing their last demo, they take on three new members and announce an 'Autumn Blockbuster' Megademo!" - Funny how that one keeps coming back time after time?
Runner Up: 'Bionic Balls', where Slime of Delta Force channels the spirit of Alan Johnstone starting with "This is the tale of young Freddie Bloor, whose sexual equipment got jammed in the door.."
Whatever happened to? - "Problem Child", the upcoming stylish new demo from Delta Force, after 'Punish Your Machine'.
Issue 10..
We start with another top flight intro, back from the days when zoom and rotate was fresh and young. A frantically quick example is played out here and applauded.
As for the Mag itself, Delta Force are most definitely in charge now. Sammy Joe pops up for a brief apology and sale of the Lost Boys PD Library. He's even lazier, or busier on other things than ever. The tone is set by "The Scene Sucks" where New Mode proclaims the death of the Atari ST scene due to the poor quality of many of its productions. You can argue whether he was right or not, but even if it died, he didn't predict its subsequent resurrection and astoundingly long lasting undeadness.
The underlying message is, that we should perhaps be playing with other things rather than computers? Dominating proceedings, and getting a lot of subsequent flak directed at the post Delta Force Maggie team for it, is the looming 'Adults only' section. From a viewpoint of now, this is charmingly retro, back from the days where 'Gentlemen's entertainment' came in paper form, and some of it was in words rather than just pictures! It is ripped content, which makes you wonder why Delta Force were not tempted to write any masterworks of erotic literature themselves? Maybe if they had managed to kick out Maggie 11, then we could have seen some original scribblings of a sexual nature from them?
In general, there's a varied selection of articles, but nothing really outstanding. Delta Force do try to take it seriously with a selection of demo and game reviews, taking an uncompromising stance, somewhat like Moondog later on, with the Undercover Mag. Other contributors join in, there is a growth in the 'multimedia' section, where music and movies are adored in text.
Best bit(?): An article by one 'AJ Booker', another contributor that I found, who wrote a remarkably prescient and unfortunately correct article about the rise and rise of the Windows/Intel PeeCee, at a very early stage. Even if he was a tad over optimistic about the ease of use of Windows 3.1. Over twenty years later, Windowze is still a pain in the anal regions after several newer versions!
Runner-Up: Felice in his debut issue of Maggie, has a bit of a downer on the town of Bedford for some reason, well, LOTS of reasons!
Whatever happened to? - The upcoming mega-demo by Delta Force? Oh I forgot, the scene sucked!
And at that point, it seems that for reasons left vague and unclear, Delta Force withdrew from the Atari scene at large.
There was a long hiatus after that bridge-burning issue 10, with great uncertainty what to do next. For a time, serious consideration and article writing hours were devoted to a new project, 'HP Source', which looked like it was going places when Maggie had faltered. There's even a 'Farewell' text, included for laughs, which was written for Issue 11 as though it was for a final issue. However, a former editor turned up with a germanic moustache, like a source code disk bearing fairy godmother at Easter 1993, and a rebirth of Maggie from our hands became inevitable.
Issue 11..
(Narrator enters darkened room, switches light on, bulb in light is of inferior quality, so entirety of room is not fully or consistently illuminated. In one of the darker corners, the rebirth issue 11 is cowering in the flickering shadows.)
No intro, we're starting again effectively from scratch here.
We see a lot of the writing and editorial genius of Felice in this prog, in fact it is fair to say that he was the main protagonist in restarting Maggie. We're still both learning on the job, it is painfully apparent. However, a very eclectic (that word, again!) range of articles, reflecting the different publications that they were written for, appear here.
Best moment: A rambling column called 'Rottspott' was a perfect microcosm of all the overexcited hype, confusion and missed launch dates for the Falcon 030 that was liberally splattered all over issue 11. With contributions by Felice, well done mate!
Runner-up: A neat bit of socio-political foreshadowing for the 'World of Work' as described in the Maggie Lifestyle Guide."In about ten years time, there may only be a couple of (Japanese owned) factories left in Britain, turning out plastic Beefeater hats for the tourist. (German people, don't laugh, you will have two, or three jobs to pay for all the social security bills for the rest of the EEC countries. Super efficiency does, after all, have a price.)" Stick the word 'Eurozone' here at this point with 'Greece', not so funny now?
Useful technical fact to wheel out at fanboy arguments: The 'EC' in the Amiga 1200's 68EC020 cpu stands for 'embedded controller' of the sort used in domestic appliances. Which led our reporter at the Future Entertainment Show to speculate whether the A1200 had two extra modes, 'rinse' and 'spin'.
Issue 12..
This could otherwise be called 'Rebirth 2.0'.
It came to fruition in a country cottage in deepest Wales, with another regular contributor, 'Pele' of the Lemmings, who was to become something much bigger a bit later on. Stylistically, this is the first of the awesome K-Klass cover picture issues, setting a style that would last for several issues. Article-wise, things are calming down from the Falcon hysteria of issue 11, but there is still a fair bit to enjoy here. It is also settling down with details of a proper regular team, editorial and plans for the next issue.
Best moment: Felice includes a building in his lengthy and diverse 'Dead Celebrities' article as Holbeck Hall in Scarborough is victimised by coastal erosion. That's some cool thinking on your feet writing there mate!
Runner-up: Trips away got really realtime in a very real sense, with a prehistorically early venture into portable hardware, a DC-3000 386SX-25 notebook PC with Word Perfect 6.0, on a biking trip around Rutland Water with two local computer club dudes. Just about everything got broken, bikes, the battery life of said laptop, Wizard and Quasar's car. CiH's non-existent fitness levels were broken to start with. The laptop came courtesy of Dave and Mark of the Wellingborough Computer Club.
Analogue vs Digital insight, 1992 style, for adult material: "Access time, the jazz mag allows you to 'random access' its entire 120-odd pages in a matter of seconds. (Unless those pages are stuck together for some reason.)"
Issue 13..
Maggie 13 was released in early 1994, in a post-Xmas blaze of news and rumours. K-Klass is back and was bullish about the future of the new Atari Jaguar console, with a witty cover picture extolling its newness compared with the competition. Back then it seemed anything with an Atari badge still had at least half a future, as a number of game reviews (Frontier, Goal, Lasers and Men) and previews were breathlessly discussed. There were some early Falcon demo thrills and a classic multi-disque epic, 'Froggies over the Fence' to enjoy on the ST.
Best moment: Trips away were different back then. Demo parties were still a year or so in the future. Instead I went to something called 'Vocon'. This was a Sci-Fi convention, loosely HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy themed, involved some heavy dressing-gown with fake beard action, and an extremely drunken after-party was described in horrible detail.
Runner-up: Occasional acerbic guest columnist, Gus Spank produces a surprisingly serviceable history of Margaret Thatcher which could still be used today. No bitter ranting is degenerated to.
Abiding mystery: Whatever happened to the Falcon 030 version of 'Hornet' from Microprose. Methinks it was a misprint in a trade catalogue, seized upon by hopeful hordes of flight-sim starved zombie fans!
Issue 14..
Dateline spring of '94 and the guarded optimism continues. If the big producers of games and other software for Atari are dropping out, the little guys are taking their place. But we're all dropping jaws at our first exposure to the gaming phenomenon that was 'Doom'. It even got a review here, and rave reviews, mostly on the back of the expected Jaguar version. Demos are still in a time of transition, with first efforts from an obscure Swedish group called 'The Dead Hackers'. Wonder what became of them? Other stuff includes our first look at something graphical called 'Chroma Studio' and various other goodies of a noisemaking nature for the Falcon 030.
Best moment: I go to the ECTS at Islington, don't get to see much Atari Jaguar stuff, as Atari operate a closed stand, but do get to be within stabbing distance of Sam Tramiel and Bob Gleadow in the hall! One of our visiting party decided to upchuck his Burger King 'Nah, not really in the mood right now' special onto the uncaring pavement of Oxford Street in London.
Runner-up: In a very packed and far-ranging 'Next issue' column, we somehow manage to dismember an appalling shitpile of a multi-media CD-ROM game, the infamous and very expensive 'Microcosm', by Psygnosis, who had form for pre- release hype concealing a mediocre end product.
Set fire to it, piss on the burnt remains and bury at sea in concrete moment: I had a couple of friends over to stay, they were tangentially related to this diskmag. We had a few/lot of drinks that evening, and attempted to construct a real time story type thing. Nothing helped. Nothing at all.
Issue 15..
There seems to be another of those periodic outgrowths of issue size and ambition. K-Klass utterly nails another famous cover pic, with the unfortunate takeover of bankrupt Commodore computers by an infamous cartoon duo. A solid set of reviews with everything from Tempest 2000 to Starball, with a whole load in-between. We show off the class of Fried Bits 2 for demo reviews. Our away team reports on the very extended, drunken and locked out of the room 'Inconceivable' Sci-Fi convention and a bunch of different shows. We spotted Mark Hamill at another ECTS, "Use the broom cupboard Luke!" This paragraph only leaves the tiniest of scratches on the surface. It was a bursting issue, in a nice way.
Best Moment: So this has to be our long hot summers day out at Caspian Software of Rock and Roll Clams and Zero-5 fame. Mr Pink happens to be in town, so we both go and write up what happened. There is also an interview in there too.
Runner-up: CiH manages a rare, successful venture into fiction, with a tribute to the fondly recalled 'Skooldaze' game on the ZX Spectrum, written from the main in-game character's viewpoint.
Whatever happened to.. Mugwumps and New Line follow up demos?
Issue 16..
It's early 1995, and there's some disquiet with the way the market is going. A savagely biting picture by Sh3, not K-Klass anymore, rips the rippy things out of ST Format, Britain's ONLY ST Mag! There was a lot of disquiet about the growing dominance of the PeeCee in the marketplace, expressed in several places. This was the 1995 'state of the art', which as we remember, was a right old state.
However, to cheer things right back up, we had a big twosome of game reviews, with Atari STE smashers Obsession and Zero 5 getting in there. There was a decent level of Jaguar coverage and even Lynx game reviews emerging. Teamed up with a nice new EKO Falcon demo and a very wide-ranging humour portfolio, this was quite an enjoyable issue.
Best moment: I'm going to give this to a massive combined double review of 'Aliens vs Predator' and 'Doom' on the Jaguar. Turns out that Sh3 is rather a good reviewer as well as a top cover artist.
Runner up: My poor old car that had recently died back then gets an obituary! Poor little Ford Fiesta! Unfortunately, it was replaced by something just as rust-prone.
For a short time.
The Goodies folder just got interesting: Yes, a three level demo of the Reservoir Gods new game, Bubble Bobble came with this issue.
Issue 17..
Excitement is building for the fifth anniversary, with all sorts of cool things anticipated for that landmark issue. Meanwhile, we have a pretty respectable Maggie here, with a little bit of Sony the greedy megacorp slagging shown here. We're in the calm before the Fried Bits 3 storm, demo- wise, although we do get the epic 'Obnoxious Demo' in view. Games are quieter, but the excellent 'Towers 2' for the Falcon is reviewed.
Best moment: Mr Pink's memorable write-em-up of the Fried Bits 3 party, got us fired up and inspired to try out some of this demo party action in the future. Twenty years later, the addiction has not calmed down one little bit!
Runner up: The 'internet' is found wanting by Gus Spank. This is the 1995 version, with all the lame 1995 style hype that was going on then. Did President Clinton really say he was "Going live, real time, on the information superhighway"? Knowing him, probably yes, to get rid of Hillary watching him at the computer, whilst he was downloading prototype dodgy porno JPEG files on a 14.4k modem!
Wrong prediction gold star winner! (Re. The Sony PlayStation at the Spring 1995 ECTS) "It could just be possible that this system does not have a long term future unless they rethink the retail price of software rather urgently." The same article was pretty on the money about most of Atari's Jaguar games not offering anything really new though.
Issue 18..
It is a long hot Friday evening in mid-August 1995 at Rushden, Northamptonshire. Mr Pink is cursing at a raft of weird happenings revealed by my TOS 4.01 Falcon when he attempts to debug his latest project on that machine. Yes, the Falcon Maggie menu shell is finally and fitfully coming to life!
A lot of words have been expended on the events of that fifth birthday weekend at the time and shortly after then, so I won't add too many more, but needless to say, we witnessed a triumph of a double release.
All the attention went on the brand new Falcon shell. This was headlined by a perfectly pitched intro from Tat of Avena. Never had a 3D textured doughnut been put to such effective use. The new menu starts with the high concept synthesised piano tones of a massive multichannel Screamtracker tune, and a glorious Sh3 pixelled picture provides the cover. The new shell has lots of features, full colour pictures to view but fortunately, the same high quality articles as before.
The ST shell is 'business as usual', so has a lot less inherent excitement about it, but a suitably celebratory picture of a birthday cake. Inside, we're picking up on the ecstatic post-Fried Bits 3 demo reviews, a hatful of interesting mainly ST games and extra Atari Lynx coverage. There is quite a bit of coverage of the fifth anniversary itself, with one article as long as this one is going to be, but only covering the first five years! (And a lot of contributor mini-biographies to bulk things up.) We even get a "whatever happened to Flossie the Sheep?" article in there, somehow.
There is a fair bit of 'Angst' in the multimedia section, interviews with movers and shakers on the Atari scene, such as James ' No sense of direction whatsoever' Matthews. An amazing machine called the Atari Microbox is written about in incredulous tones, by a fellow diskmag editor Slimer. (It sort of turned out to be true in the end.) We even manage to get Richard Karsmakers, king of ST News to cough up in this issue with some text. After all, the grand triple alliance of diskmags, Magnetic Interlude is up and running! (But not for long, as DBA Mag and ST News both dropped out soon after.)
Best Moment: Seeing the Falcon Maggie shell start up for the first time! No, correction, seeing Tat's intro, THEN the Falcon Maggie shell starting up!
Runner up: Rich Karsmakers delivers his congratulatory text in the form of a strange but gripping short story.
Sciency bit: Thanks to Phineas Pope of Merlin PDL, during his interview we learn that the energy value of 500,000 burning 'Intel Inside' stickers is enough to boil a quails egg. (But the egg is a lot more useful.)
Issue 19..
After the triumphant explosion of issue 18, the next Maggie is a quieter production, with CiH being largely left alone to get on with things. Putting together the new Falcon specific shell is a 'learning experience', but one which is managed reasonably, sort of successfully. It's a bit of a while after issue 18, but it is also nicely bulging out at the sides as a result of the extended wait.
Inside, quite a lot of the issue is concerned with the Maggie 5th birthday party, including a minute by minute write up by yours truly, and a report from 'Vogue'. Our brand new fifth birthday party clothing had even come to the attention of the print mags such as Atari World and ST Format, so we responded to them, writing about us (in a positive fashion, I might add. The 'ST Floormat' cover from issue 16 seemed to have been overlooked or forgiven.)
There is still plenty happening on our favourite platforms, with cool games such as Killing Impact, Pacthem and Team to play with, also Rayman for the Jaguar got in. Even the Falcon specific version of the Pinball game 'Obsession' is keenly awaited. But this was nothing more than a chimera, as things turned out.
Demos have a strongly French flavour, with Geranium and the Exa demo getting top billing. There was a bit of a CD-Rom special in this issue, as such a unit had been acquired, so several silver disks were reviewed. The 'humour' section gets a lot of attention, as do the show reports and interviews. Oh, and I'm really looking forward to going to my first demo party this year, at Symposium 96! In other places, Tony Greenwood is exuberant about the joys of modem ownership.
Best Moment: Ed Cleveland aka 'Eddies Cat' wins this by a country mile, with 'Log Your Net', the experience of watching computer telly. You need to remember that there is no such thing as "Happy Rubber Clog Day" in the Netherlands, not even as a rough analogue of April Fools day. Unfortunately, the rest of the article was only half joking!
Runner up: Yeah, it's got to be the Maggie 5th Birthday party report, too big to ignore, with tons of realtime text and witty insights made during a droopingly hot couple of days in August. The elephant in the room, otherwise known as the eight people in my lounge at the Rushden residence!
Ominous note:- We can't get away from one thing in particular. At around this time, late 1995, certain people in CiH's life who should have known better, started to get into computers, especially the beast known as 'PeeCee'. Yes, my slow descent into providing free tech support hell was documented in random places in this Maggie. A little bit later, this gave rise to the (created in) five minute wonder called 'Eezi-PeeCee Maggie', but that is a story for later on.
Issue 20..
Dear God, that cover picture on the ST version was a bodge too far, wasn't it! (The equally stolen Falcon edition picture is quite pleasant to look at though. Topless cave babe dinosaur cavalry, can't beat it!) The menus on the ST version were a classic case of "Well that blue looked okay on my monitor!" But not easily readable on any other screen, it seems.
After Tat's masterclass in making the maximum impact with a torus in issue 18, the Maggie 20 Falcon edition is graced with another humorous intro from him, namely what happens if evil livestock diseases infect beloved edible 3D objects. (Answer, the authorities panic with extreme prejudice, and flamethrowers!)
Anyway, squinting into the bluey inky darkness of the ST menu, what delights does issue 20 bring forth?
We'd been to a demo party! Our first demo party at Symposium '96 near Hamburg. This issue is heavily influenced by that party and what sprang forth from there. Apart from the most extended and rambling realtime report yet, several demos and at least one very promising game preview were discussed here.
It's another packed issue in general, with lots of reviews of many different things.There's the debut of something called 'Poetry Corner', even more anti- PeeCee musings all over the place, plenty of so-called 'humour' and a fair number of useful coding tips. We see more than usual of Mr Pink's sister Ripley in this issue.
Best moment: Yet again, a big event overshadows everything else in a generally excellent issue with Symposium '96 recounted in all its bleary sleep deprived glory. We seriously attempted to break the limits of the text displayers on both shells. There was a certain amount of digital photography that made it into both of the issues. Was my hair really that bouffant looking back then? (YES!)
Runner up: Mr Pink takes a look at a 4k production for the Falcon that was keen on hellfire for some reason. The Spirits made their first and last appearance at the Symposium 96 party. Mr Pink was not too impressed with their ethos and said so.
First rumblings of the Need for Speed.. We got the first mention of the Nemesis over clocker upgrade in Maggie 20, the first tentative step down a very long and expensive path littered with upgrades! Nowadays, unmodified and unblemished Atari Falcon 030's are rarer and more precious than ever, being heavily outnumbered by the modded Falcons!
Issue 21..
After the historic issue 18, this one has got to be my next favourite issue of Maggie.
With the whole team working like a tightly wound and lightly oiled object, we pulled out an issue to a deadline, this being the Autumn Atari show in September 1996. Tat's only gone and reworked the ST Maggie shell code, so the menu bars have broken free and can be distributed around the screen in a carefree fashion. The ST shell cover pic is a goodie, a tastefully converted version of the massively multicolour ray traced Falcon menu picture. Issue 21 for both shells has movie star looks, by which I mean Marilyn Monroe or Sandra Bullock in their prime, and not Shrek.
And clicking on 'loader.prg' reveals something not seen for a long time, since issue 10 on the ST side of things. Tat has done an intro with all sorts of twisty textures and tunnels in it. Pretty much a complete demo packed in that file. We also get a tasty intro for the Falcon shell from our French friends, Hydroxid.
Going inside, the issue size is a bit smaller than the last couple or so issues. There is nothing really big going on in our world at that time. For games and demos, we're chasing up what came after Symposium '96. There are some nice ones, such as the Exa demo, and Bugs from Outer Space. We catch an early look at a 'Bad Mood' preview, a project which finally came to fruition at the end of 2014! An enjoyable Defender clone, 'Spice' gets its obligatory late nineties Spice Girls reference in. There's even the Atari Lynx version of the classic Pysgnosis bore-me-up 'Shadow of the Beast', which manages to retain the slick movements of the Amiga original, and also the dodgy playability.
Rather than continent-spanning epics abroad, we're closer to home with the Wessex Atari Group. A hatful of useful coding tips, album and movie reviews, dodgy humour and more round up the rest of the issue.
Best moment: Has to be Tat's intro for the ST version. We were used to his elite code wrangling skills on the Falcon, it was a revelation to see these successfully back ported to the lower spec ST.
Runner up: Poetry corner, has its tribute to the inanimate pebble-like life form that is Alastair Bodin, head of Atari software development, we learn that if he had been a fruit, he would had been a banana, among other things.
Public showing! - We actually had our own stand space at the Autumn Atari show. It was just about big enough for a couple of computers and a very big telly screen. Needless to say, Tat's intro got a lot of airtime that weekend.
Issue 22..
After the frantic rush to get Maggie 21 out on a self-imposed deadline, Maggie 22 was something of a return to normal service. If Maggie 21 had been slightly lacking anywhere, it was with the 'not quite the best that the team were capable of' articles. However, we're back on form here.
No intro, but a spiffing cover picture from Sh3, the drawing entity formerly known as 'K-Klass'. This did nicely for both shells, proving it could successfully convert down to sixteen colours for the ST version.
There is quite a bit in this issue. We're between epochs and there is still a busy scene with lots of games and demos, just nothing that is quite setting the world on fire. Ripley gets her reviewing fangs into Thomas Haines 'Breakout' and tears it to pieces. The best of the demos fighting for the top spot are the frankly 'cut and shut' Joint Venture, and the complete 'moment after the reset button was pressed on reality' Air Dirt by the Senior Dadzzzz!
In other parts of the Mag, Tat kindly tells us all about the intro he did last time, there's a veritable truck load of interviews including one from R.Karsmakers, the Atari shows that we attended last time are written up here. Additionally, some mythical beast called the 'Phenix' gets its first mention here, and a party called Silliventure is tentatively looked forward to. Also, one of our regular associates, John Hayward, has a near death encounter with a fire engine.
Best Moment: We've got a new writer, Jody Smith. Anything of his in this issue gets the hallowed top prize. Among other things, we are invited to "Build a really high wall and watch planes crash into it. Put a net below to collect all the pieces. Have competitions with your friends to see who can collect the biggest aircraft."
Runner up: Is also a 'top tip'. We learn what a messy business, re-inking printer ribbons is, courtesy of someone called 'Mark D'.
Stone Age man forgets the secret of fire, is doomed to extinction department! A sad tale, related by Ed 'Eddies Cat' Cleveland here. An Amiga owner of very little brain is shown how to format a blank disk. Some weeks later, it is discovered that said Amiga owner is creating new blank disks, by throwing his original blank disk into a disk copier program, and 'copying' the blank disk on to the target disk!
Issue 23..
Move forward to May 1997, since the last time we've had a change of government and an upgrade for the Falcon, which was almost an upgrade too far, so now we're onto Maggie 23. There's a funny little stub of an intro on the Falcon shell by the Polish group Shadows. This turned out to be the very first part of their Siliconvention demo entry, which played back somewhat garbled originally.
Lots happening this time around. Some of us went to the Siliconvention party in Bremen and saw Tat's masterpiece, Sonoluminescenz unfurl on the big screen for the first time. This was rightly considered to be a new epoch in Falcon 030 demos. Some others were attempting the cheapo option with fitting the Nemesis speed booster, namely 'get a friend to do it', then that friend's hand slips and the preciousss! machine has to go away for repairs.
We manage to fit in a visit to a spring Atari show, whilst the repairs from the fitting mishaps are going on. We get to play with a completed 'Running', possibly the most complex and involving game from the classic era of the Falcon. The class of Silicovention gets its turn in the demos.
We get an election special from Jody Smith, which is very special indeed! Another guest contributor, John Weller, from STen magazine writes about the memorably flawed kinds of people that live in bedsitters. John Hayward is full of good advice about salvaging old computers, and Mr Pink goes a 'Zig a zig ah!' with the Atari Spice Girls! Truly there are a lot of articles and a great mixture of themes in this issue.
Best Moment: Almost too many choices, but Mr Pink's Siliconvention party report wins the day here. We get a blow by blow account of how little sleep someone can get by on at a demo party.
Runner up: Blue Monkey, Jody Smith's audacious prank calling gets as far as the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester. Jody helpfully advises, "Don't you go getting intimate with those surrounding communities. I've seen yer, out there, missing babies."
Movie magic! - "Four Weddings and an Alien" - Hugh Grant excels himself in the role he has made his own, the diffident genteel English prat, assiduously dodging the alien face huggers that are claiming his carefree bachelor friends one by one, and forcing them into English country churches to get married. This all changes however, when he meets the Alien queen, played by Andie Macdowell!"
Issue 24..
Autumn leaves are tumbling, have tumbled and are now rotting in the gutter. It's October 1997, with another Atari show special pushed out of the door, in a crazed feat of imitating our Issue 21 breakthrough.
Actually, there's quite a bit to brag about this time round. We get another compact but compelling intro by Tat for the ST version. He's trapped in a world made of blobs, whilst Garfield and friends get their highly polished effects onscreen on the Falcon, courtesy of Newbeat Developments. There's even a bit of a tasty game in the goodies folder, namely Super Pac Man by Ed Cleveland.
One thing not to brag about is the ST shell cover picture. This is another 'borrow', this time from Angelo, aka Low Life. This converts superbly down to sixteen colours in an STE palette, but the menus, so dark! (see issue 20 for more info.)
Inside, we find out that people are getting online, in an early days Zetnet exploring kind of way. We've got a bit of a revamp on the Falcon Maggie shell, with new and fancier menu's, and a slicker text reader coming up. Crown of Creation, the misleadingly named Wing Commander style space shooter is on the Falcon, and the even more misleadingly named unofficial 'Worms' clone called 'Battlezone' reviewed for the ST. A splash of Godboy reviews gets in here too.
The big news for demos is with the outpouring of releases from the Orneta Party, where you can get 'Any Colour You Like' and Dead Hackers show their first mastery of the 4k intro, with FPU code.
There's a big splurge in the 'humour/miscellany' section, with the Reservoir Gods viewpoints coming more to the fore. There is even a little piece, condensed from people's writings on the demise of Diana, Princess of Wales. Elsewhere in the issue, we spot the first splash of the wave of the future, as Rich Davey writes up the first decent Atari ST emulator, Pacifist. There's a somewhat 'too late now' guide to self-fitting the Nemesis speed booster. Evil of Dead Hackers Society is interviewed, where we discover his dislike of jazz, especially with trumpets.
Best Moment: On a whim, I'm going to chuck this one at 'Poetry Corner', which combined exquisitely formed words with ascii shapes, in an Atari friendly form of concrete poetry.
Runner up: The Reservoir Gods had a little get-together in deepest Wales. They wrote it up. The local supermarket was depleted of three months stock of quick- cook noodles, amongst other achievements.
John Hayward in David Attenborough mode:- "The Elephant (Amstrad PCW) - Reliable and dependable. There used to be loads of them, not so many of them now as they are old, too slow and are left behind by other animals. There are caves full of dead ones."
Issue 25..
Drift easily into early 1998, and issue 25 of Maggie is up for consideration. The Falcon edition gets an official intro by the Mystic Bytes, with lots of 3D stuff. It's like a shortened version of one of their demos. The full version of the new Falcon shell is now here.
A tasteful cover picture from Ripley does the business for both editions, the ST shell converts successfully. Inside, the horror at the bodysnatcher style take-over by Microsoft PeeCees has dialled down to an amused contempt, as the editorial is a strangely timeless piece on the phenomena of 'PC Rage', where hapless users and handguns fatally interact with Windows 98.
A gallic Willies Adventure style platformer, 'Blum' gets a turn, as does a very social Swedish shooter, 'Corsair'. Patrice Mandin is on his lifelong quest to bring 'Doom' to a Falcon. The big Falcon demo, with massive tunnels, is 'Dream Dimension', 'Amok' demo provides a welcome revival on the ST. More ominously, we're in the middle of wave after wave of 128 byte 'tinytro's' and these all have to be considered too.
The madness elsewhere is at peak insanity. Dolmenballs puts Mr Pink in the Gus Spank slot, Microsoft go into the competitive replacement body parts market, Jody Smith is, well, Jody Smith. Some of the material is reflecting our new found embrace of the 'information superhighway', with reviews of Cab v2.5, a guide to 1998 essential websites. There is even a whole article devoted to the inane but memorable chat that was to be found on Atari IRC back then.
Best Moment: There is an epic and lengthy show report, for the previous Autumn Atari show. This has a photo, immortalising me and Felice. The latter looking especially spaced out!
Runner up: Terrifying vision of things elsewhere in the demo scene department! A rare treat of a text grab from an Amiga scene CD ROM. 'Scenario 95' was a real demo party. The report was written by someone who had precisely zero consideration and people skills, echoing into the future as the type of demoscener to avoid! The party itself does not sound like it was too well organised. As Demozoo puts it "The competition winners were all promised 1.2gig HD's for their troubles, but no prizes ever materialised."
We breach the barriers into yet another format. As well as the commonly expected Falcon and ST shells, there is now also a HTML issue, done by SH3. So now you can read Maggie on a Hades! (And we finally did, when we got to the Alternative Party that Easter.) This was a one-off, sadly. (UNTIL NOW!)
Issue 26..
Summer 1998. This one starts off innocuously enough, with a sparse but sophisticated intro for the Falcon shell by Tat. This is showcasing some of his most advanced 3D routines yet in the form of a very mobile textured 'Maggie 26' logo.
There's a choice of cover pictures, with Ed Cleveland's satirical Posh Spice themed cover for the ST version, or something more action/adventure orientated for the Falcon shell from Sh3.
The editorial offers some big clues about major changes at the top. Mr Pink is now active as the deputy editor. He also contributes to the issue in a really big way generally, with a review of the slight but amusing 'Monomental' by the Senior Dads taking up nearly 17 kilobytes of text. The rest of the issue is equally as epic in size. We're fresh from attending the first Alternative party at Easter, and that sprawled across three separate text files. We're embroiled in the first major media internet uproar, with Lynda LaPlante's lamentable 'Killer Net' telly series taken apart. Felice has gone Goodwill Hunting and John Hayward proposes fitting a second hand PeeCee to your car. Clearly he likes crashing a lot!
And yet, and yet, we keep on coming back to the topic squatting in the centre of Maggie 26, like a large Rustlers microwave burger-fed youth letting off occasional bursts of flatulence, namely the tricky state of diplomatic relations between Maggie and another scene diskmag of some repute, the 'Undercover Magascene'.
Maggie 26 was otherwise known as the "Wow, that escalated really quickly!" issue. Mr Pink produces the most detailed review of of any diskmag attempted by anyone, namely Undercover, in its Issue 12 incarnation. This stretches across two text files. The humour section is the biggest yet, and revisits the contretemps described above, many times, from many different angles, even including a couple which Pythagoras hadn't considered. For a lot of people, reading Maggie 26 in places, had to be done whilst hiding behind a suitably bile-resistant household object.
Still, nobody died, and things did sort themselves out and get better in the end.
Best Moment: To keep the positivity going, This one is awarded to the very long and epic, written on hand towels Alternative Party report. Finland, sleepless nights, Hesburgers, mad demos from an obscure platform (MSX), sauna's, snow in April, and much more!
Runner up: Mr Pink's review of Undercover 12. It wasn't actually written as a biased slagging off, rather it functioned as a very revealing mirror being held up to it (which did also include the good parts of UCM 12.)
Whatever happened to? - The Reservoir Gods game 'Republic'. This had a novella shown in issue 26, previews were glimpsed. It was explained a lot of work was needed, but this most ambitious of their game projects never got finished.
Issue 27..
We're in Spring 1999, it's very very delayed. There's no intro this time.
This Maggie has a very 'morning after' feeling. That is, the morning after a rowdy party where too much was drunk and shouting arguments ensued. There is a hangover and a bit of a gummy aftertaste with consequences. We've lost the invaluable services of two valued Maggie Team members, namely Tat and Ed Cleveland. Some of it may have been to do with the Atari scene drama and fallout from the great Undercover Mag feud, but also there was a loss of motivation in general.
As for the rest of it, we've been distracted in a number of different ways. Readers are warned they shouldn't expect anything extra-special from the long waiting time, but take it as they find it.
On a happier note, we're looking forward to the Error in Line party, enthusiasm that was rightly rewarded. We get to play with an amusing game of Atari scene Breakdance, courtesy of Paranoid. Some prominent 'what might have beens' congregate in the demo reviews, with previews of Tat's lost final masterpiece 'Binliner' and the missing since 1995 'Motion Blur' demo from Aggression. The ST side of things is experiencing a strong revival with the back to old school 'Nostalgico' demo, and the newest of new school 'Do Things' from Cream.
Elsewhere, Mr Pink is invigilating a 'Felice Exam' and Jody Smith is well, caught up in the tendrils of his own reality. Diskmag reviews are much less tense than the last time. High end hardware from very different sources gets pages of devotion from Mr Pink, as both the Playstation 2 and the tragically never to quite appear Centek Phenix are both discussed at length.
And John Hayward produced an ASCII relief map of Florida from his trip to America, which looked like a giant cock and balls. Generally, it's another packed issue, which after the delays we've had, it should be!
Best Moment: The 'Bunion Canyon' review, a nice little review for a neat little game, with a really cool mono title font using a new feature of the text displayer! Just for the hell of it!
Runner up: Big box shifter shows in freezing sheds in Staffordshire make an appearance, with an extensive report and epic realtime, much of it written by drunken Gods of the Reservoir later on. CiH scores a second Falcon from Steve 'Floppyshop' Delaney.
The big question for 1998, as asked in the Stafford Show realtime:-"When have free sandwiches tasted of anything other than processed chicken, when they haven't got chicken in?"
Issue 28..
We've made it to the 21st century. We're in THE FUTURE!
It's early 2000, the millennium bug didn't bite that hard and the lights are still on. With the shiny lights, active computers and disk drives also tick away uninterrupted to create Maggie 28.
We start with a classy Atari STE intro by GGN/KUA and Cream, with lots of green and fractals.
Inside, we're delighted with the epic splurge of demo releases from Error in Line '99. The Falcon did good, but this party really belonged to the Atari ST, especially Checkpoint. The world of games is not quite so fast paced, with the popular first person shooter 'Running' still giving added value with an extensive game completion guide written by Matt Smith.
There is a high amount of new millennium related content, especially with what did or didn't happen with the millennium hype. We're also girding our loins for the tenth anniversary issue, which we are still looking to release in August 2000, in an incredible fit of delusion. Mr Pink has a lower profile this issue, as he's working now, one of his contributions advising about 'Getting into the games industry.' Nothing in there about a work/life balance skewed 95 percent in favour of work though?
We're also casting a sceptical eye over the first of the new generation of Star Wars films, the Phantom Menace, which had a bit too much of the annoying sidekick menace in it. Major hardware upgrades take a big chunk of the available diskspace, with diverse solutions adopted by different people. These are 1. Centurbo 2, a 50 MHz Falcon upgrade with tricky extended install saga for CiH. 2. A neat and nicely put together out of the box Atari GEM compatible 68040 powered clone called 'Milan' for Kev Davies. 3. Jody Smith picks up the first of the new wave of affordable Apple hardware, with the first transparently cased globular iMac. We are also living in interesting times for software, as the Falcon was made to do sound-to-light displays brilliantly with 'Whip!" and taught to play MP3's via FalcAMP.
Best Moment: I'm chanting "Error in Line, Error in Line!" over and over again. Massive party report with journey saga of some great times at Dresden, check. A similarly huge realtime article which didn't get powered off and lost, unlike another one there, check! A real feeling that we'd been to one of the epic Atari parties of all time, like in the Fried Bits golden age, sure thing!
Runner up: An issue two article is revisited in a fairly thoughtful and sensible fashion, completely unlike the original in fact. 'Girls and Computers' part two answers some questions from the original text, and raises some new ones too.
Whatever happened to? - 'Project Blue' by T.O.Y.S. This was a bunch of effects coded with an Atari STE in mind, such goodness as a 12-bit video mode, motion blur, bump-mapping and a 'Descent' style 3-D engine were promised. Still, we did get the rather fantastic 'Wait' demo for the Falcon at Error in Line 2.
Issue 29 aka the 10th Anniversary issue..
And finally, at last, we're breasting the finishing tape and crossing the line of this ten year marathon, this is the tenth anniversary and final issue of Maggie! (Until now..)
For the Falcon version, we get a nifty Xmas themed intro for Falcon from Earx and FUN. An Ascii-graphics themed Readme.1st text gets in there, along with a 'read me second.text created at the STNICCC 10th anniversary party itself.
There is one major emotion pervading the whole of this issue, relief at getting this one out! There is a mountain of text in here, much of it from other people. And there is a fair bit on the theme of '10th birthday, we've done loads up to now, eh?" This bit includes a rambling 75-odd k's worth from me about my entire involvement with the Atari scene. Looking back, where did I get the time and inclination to go on at that sort of length?
The games section is on starvation rations, but the demos have the releases from Sillyventure 2000, along with some others. The near future prospects of serious software in the new millennium seem to be very musical, as these include a preview of the Falcon 'synthesiser in a Falcon-shaped box' Ace Tracker.
There are two humongous demo party reports with the second Alternative Party and the Sillyventure 2000 convention both keenly attended. A revealing interview with Mr Pink, in his Software Entertainment Industry captain of excellence guise gets in there. He's able to buy loads of new toys, but doesn't get the time to play with them. Next year, he was going to spend more time coding Atari stuff. Nothing much has changed over fifteen years, has it? In the diskmag reviews, we consider the new upstart replacement for Undercover Mag and Maggie, the 'Alive' diskmag, which managed a decent run of fourteen issues and seven years. It has already started, so I'm in the peculiar position of supporting two diskmags simultaneously, one of which I'm saying farewell to, the other for which we're ramping up activity for!
Generally, all categories, apart from games, are very well stocked. Is this a suitable issue to bow out with? Perhaps it is.
Best Moment: After considering a lot of strong candidates, I'm giving this one to Jody Smith's 'Big Document'. A compilation of various letters and emails, many of which go quite deeply into the enigma of what makes a Jody Smith.
"That's how girls tend to lose interest in me. After they've spent half the night getting ready to go out, I may say something along the lines of 'I know scruffy is in this season, but the way that thing hangs on your hips, you look like an extra from Oliver Twist.' Just to provoke a reaction you understand. But then, I'm alone in the world again."
Runner up: Our overheated imaginations get the better of us, as we imagine what might happen if our trips abroad by car were taken to the maximum. A realtime text written in the wilds of Madagascar with a fiery demise and lots of unanswered questions, could it happen like that?
Whatever happened to? - 'Instabil', Moondog's replacement for Undercover Mag? Well there's actually an answer to that one, it became Undercover again!
In conclusion..
So that's it, a journey down textual memory lane for all the issues of Maggie produced over that decade. Or is it?
Well there's going to be this special 25th anniversary edition of course. And we've almost forgotten the other one-off special issues. Well they'll get their own separate (mercifully shorter) text file.
Anyway, here's to that glorious decade, and what may come next!
CiH - Various time in 2015 for Maggie 25th Anniversary.