Amiga publications and front-cover disks / applications

[gurth]

I have spent this Sunday morning playing with my Amiga and looking over old front-cover disks / applications. It reminded me of the joy, excitement, and sometimes disappoint when discovering these applications.

On the whole I think it was a gold time: pre-Internet, monthly magazines and each introduction you to a new professional software - DTP, Video Titling, CAD, Programming, Databases, Spreadsheets etc. The list was endless. What a time to be alive!

Today I have installed Pixel Professional 3D, Vista, Disk Master and ProCalc from Amiga Format, all on my Workbench 1.3 machine.

[CaptFuture]

I miss those days too! It's hard to explain to someone who didn't experience those days. I loved riding home on my bicycle with a new issue of Amiga Format or CU Amiga in my hands and digging into the cover disks.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by CaptFuture

I miss those days too! It's hard to explain to someone who didn't experience those days. I loved riding home on my bicycle with a new issue of Amiga Format or CU Amiga in my hands and digging into the cover disks.

Oh same, but Amiga Action

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Mod note: The quest for the following is available at:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=103517
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Although Amiga Format sometimes too, the coverdisks were often treasure troves of little programs. There is one from the early 90's that I have not yet been able to find, there was a little PD run & gunner game on it which was a dude running around in a pyramid zapping things. It had a very obvious egyptian-themed name, but I just can't remember it.

[andy2004]

i was a subscriber to Cu Amiga so didnt have to cycle anywhere it was delivered to my door once a month. OH what fun.. going through the process of undms the disks. to see what was new..from the floppies or getting the cd rom version.. and wondering what was on there until i could afford to get the £200 cd rom drive from power computing with the squirrel interface.

[Dunny]

Oh hell yes. AF, AUI, CU Amiga, Amiga Computing... I swear I would spend so much of my monthly excess cash on those.

Totally worth it too.

[Nobby_UK]

My Nephew would get Action and/or Power (occasionally The One)
I would get Format and/or CU (occasionally AC)

[amiman99]

90% of my Amiga software came from CU Amiga and Amiga Format.
I always got them from my local Barnes and Noble bookstore. They always stock them till the last issue.
I still have all my cover disks.
Good memories.

[XPD]

Amiga Format, CU Amiga, The One were my goto mags. Occasionally an Amiga Power if for some reason the others never arrived in the country At $17NZD each though, they were not a cheap read
But the coverdisks were generally always good

[Jope]

Always CU Amiga <3 Good times.

[ElectroBlaster]

I bought both Amiga Format and C U Amiga back in the day! At the pinnacle
when these magazines were riding high and the user base was huge, these magazines provided hours of reading. The coverdisks were great. Even now I got back to them for things like music stuff and utils.

A while back I was given some stuff, in amongst the stuff was some sealed coverdisks. They just about still had that smell it sounds daft, cant describe it! these disks had a smell around them when they were new. Would love to bottle that it brings back memories of the old days.

[Muzkat]

Coverdisks provided a huge buzz, that's for sure. Loved trawling through them to sample the latest demos, utils and music.

In a pre-internet world, getting my hands on fresh new software was always exciting.

Originally Posted by ElectroBlaster

A while back I was given some stuff, in amongst the stuff was some sealed coverdisks. They just about still had that smell it sounds daft, cant describe it! these disks had a smell around them when they were new. Would love to bottle that it brings back memories of the old days.

I REMEMBER THE SMELL TOO!!!

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by XPD

Amiga Format, CU Amiga, The One were my goto mags. Occasionally an Amiga Power if for some reason the others never arrived in the country At $17NZD each though, they were not a cheap read
But the coverdisks were generally always good

Price was indeed a thing. I was fully reliant on my parents to get this kind of stuff and the magazines were all imported and cost around 20 Guilders at the time (which I can't possibly translate into a modern currency today... it was a lot for a family with two kids to feed and put through school) which basically limited me to one magazine in the month... we picked Amiga Action because the coverdisks were more game oriented than say an Amiga Format was at the time.

Eventually overseas readers received only one coverdisk instead of the usual two... that should have given me a clue that things were not going so well.

Still, it was pretty cool that I could actually get them in the tiny tiny town in the middle of nowhere where I lived. I can't imagine there were many other people buying them.

[stevsurv]

Originally Posted by CaptFuture

I miss those days too! It's hard to explain to someone who didn't experience those days. I loved riding home on my bicycle with a new issue of Amiga Format or CU Amiga in my hands and digging into the cover disks.

Yeah me too! Except I would drive home in my car instead of a bicycle!

[CaptFuture]

Originally Posted by gimbal

and cost around 20 Guilders at the time (which I can't possibly translate into a modern currency today...

I remember as well the UK mags were fairly expensive in the Netherlands. 20 guilders would probably (roughly) translate to around 20 euros today, accounting for inflation.

Originally Posted by gimbal

Still, it was pretty cool that I could actually get them in the tiny tiny town in the middle of nowhere where I lived. I can't imagine there were many other people buying them.

My regular newsstand/news agent in the town I grew up in (Roosendaal) at one point usually just had 1 copy each of Amiga Format or CU Amiga. Sometimes they were sold out, so I figured there's at least one other guy buying these. Many, many years later I bumped into another local Amiga collector when I bought some stuff off him. He turned out to be that one other guy who was buying CU and AF in my home town from the same news agent and he also remembered wondering who that other guy was buying these mags!! It was such a trip!

[PatmanQC]

They were pretty expensive here in the states. I found one local computer shop that stuck them but the charge eight US dollars per issue Which is about $15 with inflation. Quite a bit of money for 15-year-old

[dreamkatcha]

As it happens I've been checking out a lot of readers' letters in Amiga Action lately. There are quite a few from UK peeps complaining about having to pay an extra quid when the disk(s) were first introduced. Some suggested offering a choice between cover disk and cover diskless versions, though that never happened. I expect these were the people who already had full pirated versions of the games so didn't appreciate demos or the added expense.

Given there was no internet back then I always thought the mags that came delivered with cover disks were great value. Then I didn't have to import them from anywhere further than the local WH Smiths.

[jizmo]

They magazines used to be super expensive but I was so happy to pick up a copy of CU Amiga each month (and a few years later the Amiga Format as they were the only two Amiga magazines available in my home town). I guess it was a hard and interesting decision to be made if you had several Amiga magazines available, with each one of them competing with better software giveaways!

OctaMED is the only software package I remember using for longer period, with most of the other software I just dicked around for some time. Not that they were bad programs per se, but the reading through a manual was kind of a necessity to understand the program back then and the coverdisk version lacked one by default. They did sell their own manuals IIRC.

[spiff]

About once a month dad would pick me up to stay at his place during the weekend.
As a treat, I got to select one magazine and vhs to rent

• CU amiga - oooh so many pages, a full game!! (army moves)
• Mean machine / CVG ... hmm to much Nintendo stuff.
• Amiga power - Bad cover disk!
• The one - Nice glossy cover.. i should get that! (Stupid kid!!)

As Gim said... I don't get how magazines managed to get all the way out to were we used to live .. Up-marking must have been like 300%

[spiff]

A good write-up on Mean machine. No wonder I enjoyed seeing Richard in digital foundry.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...hines-magazine

[PixelsAtDawn]

Well this is a coincidence. I'm currently writing an article about the importance of coverdisks in the Amiga scene back in the day, specifically with relation to the the sheer variety of applications that were made available this way.

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.