What's the press coming to ? OR Some remarks about German computer mags.

Every computerfreak knows the numerous colourful magazines available at the newspaper stalls almost everywhere. Most of us poor freaks have to buy at least one or two of them every month! But are they really worth the money? Here is a little list of the most important homecomputer magazines in the German speaking countries: First, there are the best-selling products published by the 'Markt & Technik' edition, such as Amiga-Magazin, Happy-Computer, ST-Magazin 68000er or Power-Play. We've got Run or Amiga-Welt from 'CW-Publications'. Then some things like Kickstart, ASM or the great Amiga-Special.

I don't want to tell you lots of facts about these magazines because I think most of you know them or don't care to. This article is not an overview of all the stuff you can buy. I only want to say a few personal words about some things that are getting on my nerves: Let's have a look at one of those nice-to-look-at M&T mags: I paid 7.- Deutschmarks or Swiss francs just to have about 150 coloured pages on my desk. What's on the first page? Some fourty years old fellow with a moustache tells me that playing pilot with Interceptor or Falcon F-16 is just gorgeous and gaming the most exciting thing in the world. What else ? Some ridiculous BASIC-Programs to type in by yourself (Do you know ONE fool who does that ? ), some strange opinions about piracy and warnings from the Gravenreuth-Clan.

Once, the Amiga-Magazin wasn't written for children sitting at home in front of their christmas gift and not knowing how to press reset. It was a really interresting publication from freaks for freaks. BUT NOW, because of the great success of the Amiga, it's becoming a beginner-paper without any interresting facts inside. They started to create a childish what-is-a-computer or don't-be-afraid part for a) fathers/mothers and b) really big losers. These pages with the blue border helping people who don't know much about computers is something that doesn't disturb me very much, because this is a special part and shouldn't have any big influence on the magazine. But the bad thing is that the whole magazine has dropped its level very much.

They talk about things no one cares for, e.g. those masses of C and BASIC proggies, that crazy 'Tips & Tricks' corner (With titles like 'Zauberer und Zitronen' !) or some lists with the name of 700 Amiga programs! And the worst thing are those letters to the editor asking all the same shit about some byte-bandit virus or how to copy a disk with the workbench and so on ... I think that the "Amiga-Magazin" isn't worth its money at present. There are some good articles (those by HQC), but the rest is mainly crap.

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This article originally appeared in the Amiga diskmagazine "Zine #1" by Brainstorm 1989.

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Addresses and other contact information were only valid when this magazine was originally published, in october of 1989.