Scene Diskmags | Code Like It's 198x

A diskmag was a magazine that ran as a program. The demo scene’s groups wrote the articles, coded a menu to read them with, added a title picture and a piece of music, and sent the result out on floppy disk to everyone on their contact lists. The magazines carried scene news, party reports, interviews, adverts from groups looking for members and, most read of all, the charts that ranked the groups, coders, musicians and artists. A commercial magazine reviewer who found one in 1993 thought he had seen what all magazines would become: “Shame you need an Amiga to read it — but this is the future of magazine publishing.”

Diskmags were not a business. In 1995 the editor of the Amiga diskmag Grapevine told Amiga Format that he did not “make a bean”: “The whole point of the ’zine is for fun and not profit.”

Why on disk

The disk was cheaper than paper. Amiga Format’s 1995 feature on “diskzines” pointed out that a disk-based fanzine needed no photocopier, and that “one whiz through a disk copier is quick, cheap and easy”. It also suited the people writing them, who were programmers, artists and musicians first. A diskmag could show a scene artist’s graphics and play a musician’s tune while you read, and its menu was itself a small piece of code to show off.

The cracking scene had paper magazines first. The West German fanzine Illegal, edited by Jeff Smart, was photocopied and posted from 1986 to 1991, with scene news, interviews and charts ranking the cracking groups. The C64 scene’s own history site Recollection calls Sex’n’Crime “the first real C64 scene diskmag”. The C64 database CSDb credits it to the group Amok and dates its second issue to April 1989; it had reached issue 21 by December 1990. Its editor, TNT of Genesis Project, went on to edit Propaganda. By 1993 Commodore Force’s public domain column counted “dozens of disk magazines, all looking remarkably similar except for the group’s name above the menu”.

What was in them

The charts came first. ZZAP!64’s public domain column in November 1992 described C64 diskmags as “produced by enthusiasts”, with “the latest gossip and news of upcoming parties, as well as interviews, reports, contact addresses and probably the most interesting thing, the charts”, which were “the best way to see if your efforts have been appreciated by the rest of the scene”. It reprinted the charts voted for by the readers of Remark, headed by the group Black Mail.

On the Amiga the best-known chart had a disk of its own. The Crusaders’ Eurochart was, Amiga Format wrote in December 1991, “really just a set of statistics of the Crusader group’s opinions on best demo, best music and so on”, but so well presented that “If you’re thinking of doing a disk magazine, look at this to see how it should be done.”

Beyond the charts, each magazine had its own character. In May 1993 Commodore Force compared four C64 diskmags:

Script, from Turkey, “voted the best C64 disk magazine currently available”, edited by Remix of the group Clique. It had been called Cemetery News when the group was named Bronx. It ran to over 20 chapters and “around 2000 blocks of uncrunched text”, and it was “not afraid to discuss controversial topics such as discrimination or the Gulf War”.
Shock, begun on paper and carried on disk first by Censor Design and then by Legend. Its charts were voted by calling the bulletin board that served as its headquarters, and it was “THE magazine to read if you’re into modem-trading”.
Brutal Recall, from the Dutch swapping group Brutal, more of a news magazine, which reached everyone because its makers were “one of the best trading groups ever”.
Remark, from the Dutch group Mega Industries, whose first issue appeared on paper; relaunched on disk years later, it set out to entertain rather than inform. It interviewed Jeroen Tel and the Rowlands brothers. The column’s author, Remi Ebus, edited Remark himself, said so, and gave it 99%.

The same column had already noted in January 1993 that the German artist Gotcha had made his name when “he and his friend started the disk magazine Mamba, which was soon to become one of the leading scene mags”.

The Amiga

The Amiga’s diskmags could look much grander. Stolen Data, a two-disk magazine from the group Anarchy, was “put together in the UK, by Judge Drokk and Kreator of Anarchy”, Amiga Format reported in March 1993, with artwork gathered from France, Germany and “all around the world”. The reviewer admired its gallery and music, and found Grapevine, by the British group LSD, “a bit UK heavy”.

Grapevine ran from May 1991, according to Demozoo. In December 1995 its editor, Pazza, described the work to Amiga Format: “I end up copying over 300 disks to send to readers, which isn’t fun at all.” His advice to anyone thinking of starting one: “don’t do it! Try something easier”. The same feature recommended R.A.W., “another ‘scene’ magazine in a similar Grapevine style”, which, like other scene magazines, tended “to be a little excluding to outsiders”. Demozoo dates R.A.W.‘s first issue to November 1991, from Pure Metal Coders; its makers joined Spaceballs at The Gathering in April 1993, and the fifth issue came out under that name. R.A.W. printed Spaceballs’ own account of how State of the Art was made.

The diskmags’ party reports have outlived the parties. Results of many early competitions are known today largely from what Stolen Data, Grapevine, Maggy and Zine printed; see Jesus on E’s, Enigma and Mental Hangover.

Reaching readers

Scene members got diskmags the way they got demos: by post from their swapping contacts (mail trading), from bulletin boards and at parties. Everyone else could buy them. British public-domain libraries were listing “Stolen Data Magazine #5” in their Amiga Format advertisements by September 1991, and the magazines’ PD pages reviewed diskmags alongside demos and utilities.

The PC

The PC scene’s diskmags arrived in the 1990s and lasted longest. Imphobia, from the group of the same name, ran to twelve issues between 1993 and June 1996, according to Demozoo. PAiN, from Switzerland, dates its first issue to January 1994 on its own site, and was still appearing in 2007. Hugi, edited by Adok, first appeared on 25 May 1996 in German; its first English-language issue, number 11, came out in June 1998, and its 38th and last regular issue in June 2014.

Later history

The form outlived the floppy disk. On the C64, Vandalism News was still being published by the groups Onslaught and Offence in December 2024, when CSDb records its 75th issue. Scene archives now hold the back issues: CSDb catalogues C64 diskmags, Demozoo and Pouët index productions for every platform, and scene.org hosts the files, which run in an emulator as they did on the original machines.

Sources

Amiga Format issue 29, December 1991, p. 187, PD pages: the Crusaders’ Eurochart 12.
Amiga Format issue 44, March 1993, p. 182, PD pages: Stolen Data 10 (Anarchy; Judge Drokk and Kreator; “the future of magazine publishing”); Grapevine.
Amiga Format issue 78, December 1995, pp. 27–30: David Crookes, feature on diskzines; interview with Pazza, editor of Grapevine; “Diskmags you should see”, including R.A.W.
Amiga Format issue 26, September 1991: PD library advertisement listing “Stolen Data Magazine #5”.
ZZAP!64 issue 90, November 1992, public domain column (Remi Ebus): diskmags and the Remark charts.
Commodore Force issue 1, January 1993, public domain column: Gotcha and Mamba.
Commodore Force issue 5, May 1993, public domain column (Remi Ebus): Shock, Script, Brutal Recall and Remark.
Recollection (Atlantis), “Cracker’s Map: Germany” (web, secondary): Sex’n’Crime as “the first real C64 scene diskmag”; its editor later edited Propaganda. https://www.atlantis-prophecy.org/recollection/?load=crackers_map&country=germany
CSDb, the Commodore 64 Scene Database (web, database): Sex’n’Crime issues 2 (April 1989) to 21 (December 1990), credited to Amok, https://csdb.dk/release/?id=674; Vandalism News issue 75, 25 December 2024, https://csdb.dk/release/?id=248533
Demozoo (web, database): LSD and Grapevine issue 1, May 1991, https://demozoo.org/groups/1503/; R.A.W. issue 1, 25 November 1991, https://demozoo.org/productions/705/, and issue 5 released for Spaceballs, https://demozoo.org/productions/60555/; Imphobia issues 1 to 12, 1993 to June 1996.
PAiN, official site (web, secondary): first issue January 1994; issue 59 at The Ultimate Meeting, 2007. https://pain.scene.org/
Hugi, official site (web, secondary): first issue 25 May 1996; first English-language issue, number 11, June 1998; issue 38, June 2014. https://hugi.scene.org/