Amiga publications and front-cover disks / applications

[Spyros]

I used to buy CU Amiga. They gave away a full commercial program on one of the two coverdisks. I'd also buy some Amiga Format issues every now and then, but when CU went down I bought AF every month. When that went down, I switched to Amiga Active and when that went down.... oh well :-)

Anyway, here's a video of Amiga Format from September 1999, less than a year before its demise.
The Amiga was still my main machine in those days, as I had no need to buy a PC yet!

[ Show youtube player ]

[gimbal]

Ha ha yeah, the CU Amiga full programs I bought some of the later issues and got among other things Comic Setter. I was over the moon, I always wanted to create my own comics and here was a program which let me do that.

Yeah. I could usually fill one panel with the stock art that came with the program before my poor A500 with 1mb of memory just ran out of juice

[Anubis]

Did at least any of those comics survive??

[gimbal]

Even if I still had the discs, I don't even think I ever managed to successfully save anything!

[Mikerochip]

I'm a huge huge fan of Coverdisks and computer magazines in general.
There were some amazing ones out there.

I lived in the ass end of nowhere (actually, I still live in the middle of nowhere!)
And it really was the only way to get to try out these new games and was my only source of software for many years!

Hell, I even enjoyed that short lived Games-X magazine! And the ... 3 times it came with a coverdisk! (All of which sold out before I got the disks! Boo)

I think that's what I spent all my pocket money on, for a long time!

[ExUnit]

Originally Posted by Excelle

I was wondering - did anyone start using an application through a coverdisk that led to greater things, like a career in a particular field, or a lifelong hobby? It seems to me that must have happened in places, with all the creative applications given away.

Well I used devpac and argasm from cover discs and eventually bought DevPac. I think devpac came with the Davy Jones Locker stuff (was it called that, how to make Blood Money basically)?

Many many years later I ended up a games programmer and eventually even working at Argonaut Games (who made Argasm) on PS1 games.



The cover discs were super important to me because it took me ages to afford devpac and the coding tutorials really helped me out.

[PixelsAtDawn]

Originally Posted by ExUnit

Well I used devpac and argasm from cover discs and eventually bought DevPac. I think devpac came with the Davy Jones Locker stuff (was it called that, how to make Blood Money basically)?

Many many years later I ended up a games programmer and eventually even working at Argonaut Games (who made Argasm) on PS1 games.



The cover discs were super important to me because it took me ages to afford devpac and the coding tutorials really helped me out.

Do you mind if I mention that in an article I'm writing ExUnit? I knew it must be the case that people picked up applications this way that led to other things, but I'm running around the community trying to gather some examples so it's not just my word

[ma693541]

I was working hard time and had both A500 and A1200, could get my hands on every Amiga magazine that was sold thru Narvesen here in Norway. Now the only printed Amiga magazine that have an cover disc, yes it's a CD-ROM, that i know about is the German/English AmigaFuture. It have been here for nearly 150 issues.

[ExUnit]

Originally Posted by Excelle

Do you mind if I mention that in an article I'm writing ExUnit? I knew it must be the case that people picked up applications this way that led to other things, but I'm running around the community trying to gather some examples so it's not just my word

Not at all, half the programmers and pixel artists from my generation owe a debt to those magazines. Total gateway drug!


We all got so much code, assemblers, artwork, tutorials and utilities from those disks and learned so much.


Happy days.

[PixelsAtDawn]

Originally Posted by ExUnit

Not at all, half the programmers and pixel artists from my generation owe a debt to those magazines. Total gateway drug!


We all got so much code, assemblers, artwork, tutorials and utilities from those disks and learned so much.


Happy days.

Cheers!

[Fiery Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Mikerochip

Hell, I even enjoyed that short lived Games-X magazine! And the ... 3 times it came with a coverdisk! (All of which sold out before I got the disks! Boo)

I think that's what I spent all my pocket money on, for a long time!

I loved it too, great as it was a weekly also. I used to like the part where they visited a different computer store every week and photographed and questioned the customers in it.

Used to love coverdisks, then there was that period where they stopped giving full games away as they said it was damaging the software market and we got demos instead.

Have to admit I'm not a fan of the utility coverdisks as never used them, was never techy with my Amiga. I do remember the frog on a swing on an early Amiga Format disk.

Was strictly all about the games for me and ZERO had some decent coverdisks early on. Merv the Merciless was given away in the first issue which was ok, then Hardball, Deflektor, etc.

Then obviously there was Rampage magazine, not much of a mag but decent full games, remember License to Kill being given away.

Amiga Power too had some cracking ones and decent PD games like Twintris.

Defo good times booting up a disk after buying a mag and seeing what was on there