Preview
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CONTENTS
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Page(s) Feature Function Key
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1 Titlepage F1
2 Editorial F2
3 - 7 Messages F3
8 - 11 Diskmagazines F4
12 - 13 The Random Bit F5
14 The End F6
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RAISTLIN'S MESSAGE-BOX ISSUE 5 : AUGUST 91
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Coding .. Kreator / Anarchy
Font .. Kreator / Anarchy
Music .. 4-Mat / Anarchy
Logo .. Mystik / Anarchy
Text .. Raistlin / Genesis Project
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Use LEFT/RIGHT cursors keys to move FORWARDS/BACKWARDS a page, and use function
keys F1 - F6 for fast access to the different sections. Press HELP at any time
to show the fast-access menu.
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Raistlin's message-box is a copyrighted release of Genesis Project. All rights
are reserved. No part of this product may be copied, reproduced, translated or
reduced to any electronic medium or machine-readable form without the prior
written consent of Raistlin/Genesis Project, 42 Browfield Terrace, Silsden, Near
Keighley, West Yorkshire, BD20 9PT. ENGLAND.
PS. Only joking!
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EDITORIAL
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After a long abscence from the Amiga scene (and computers in general), I'm
back! (Hey, I'm not that bad am I?!?).. I heard from Mr.Big of Anarchy that many
more groups are starting to do these "Message-box" things - personally I haven't
seen any of them, but it's nice to think that I might have started off a craze!!
(But on the other hand, if as many people start making these things as there are
people making REAL magazines, I imagine that you will all start getting sick of
these minizines!)...
Originally, all I intended to use my message-box for was to give Messages to
my own contacts and friends, but now I think I will also use this as a way for
me to express my own opinions of the whole Amiga-scene. Hopefully that should
make this 'MINIZINE' (as I like to call it) interesting to a much larger public.
I know I did that in the original Raistlin's Message Box, but I was very limited
as to what I could write about then - being a member of a group that wanted to
be successful in the 'Crusaders Eurochart' and all the other charts, I had to be
careful not to upset potential voters... But now that I am a member of Genesis
Project (again), a group that hasn't even got off the ground on the Amiga, I can
write anything I like... And I will!
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MESSAGES
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Marc Panther... Hi Marc!, thanks a lot for all the videos, disks, etc... You
are without a doubt my best contact, please keep it up! Hopefully Deek will
send you the cordless joysticks soon... I've given him your new address, so
he has no excuses now, right?!? While I remember - it's great to hear that
you're going to release some new music disks soon! It sure has been a long
time since I last heard some of your music! I don't suppose you have any new
pieces that would suit this message-box, would you??
Deek... Yo Richard!, don't you think it's about time you started making some
music on the Amiga?.. Has JCH done an Amiga music-routine yet or what???
Anyway, I hope you liked "Delirious 10" - I will not be making any more C-64
demos, which is why I tried to make that one something special! Well anyway,
hope we can meet at the CES show this year!
Pioneer... Hope you had a great time in France! Good luck with your A-Level
results (not that you'll need it!), I bet the dreadful thought of going to
the same University as me really helped you discipline yourself into revising
for the exams, eh?!? Anyway, see you soon OK...
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Mr.Big... Hey John, thanks a lot for the constant supply of new warez! Hope
you can visit us again in Silsden in the near future... Well anyway, keep up
the good work!.. Anarchy is doing pretty well for itself these days!
Banger... Thanks for putting up with my lame sendings Gareth! Will you be
going to this year's CES-Show? I expect so, you never seem to miss any of the
major events! I will probably be going to the CES again this year, but that
depends on whether my C-64 friends are going on the same day as all the
Amiga-guys! (Everyone seemed to turn up on different days last year!)
Zarch... Hi Mick!, your recent intros were very nice! They worked perfectly on
my ECS machine as well... I saw your intro for Anarchy - that was pretty
good too! Maybe the coding wasn't "State Of The Art", but the styling of your
intros were great - which is more than can be said of a lot of intros these
days! Oh, by the way - Kreator tells me your new intros don't work on HIS
Amiga now!... Wierd eh?
Mole... Yo Adrian!, how are you doing at learning to code?.. Hopefully we'll be
seeing lots of intros and demos from you in the near future! Anyway, thanks
a lot for all the cool sendings etc...
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Kreator.. Thanks a lot for coding this cool new Message-Box outfit for me! With
any luck I will have this text written in time for you to release this issue
at the Anarchy-meeting on Sunday! Your new game is looking pretty cool so
far, hope you get a contract with Core Design (or whatever company you decide
to sell the game to!).. Good luck at Leeds OK...
The Chief.. Yo Tony! Hopefully I'll be able to visit you very soon... I won't
have many (if any) new warez for you though, because I haven't been swapping
on the C-64 at all lately! Sorry..
Flamingo.. Hi Oskar, are you planning to code any Amiga demos in the near future
or will you be sticking to the C-64??.. Personally I think that the C-64 demo
scene has just about dried up. The only good remaining groups are Crest and
Light!.. What do you think?
Judge Drokk.. Long time no see, Mark!... I've got a question that I've always
wanted to ask you : were those Obscene Phonecalls for real or what?!? Some
of the calls seems a little hard to believe! (like the one where you phoned
your mother!...) Anyway, hope to see you at the CES-show this September, or
before then if you and John visit again...
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Bustman.. I'm back! I hope we can swap again now that my A-Levels are over!..
Maybe you could make a logo for this new Message-Box outfit? Hope so, you're
a very cool artist! If ever you visit England, give me a call and we can
arrange a meeting!
Dr.Awesome.. Hey, Marc tells me you left Crusaders and started working legally
under your real name... Does that mean you won't be writing any more demo
tunes or what?!? Anyway, please write back soon OK?
Mystik.. Hi Alan!, sorry I couldn't make it to your little meeting! I think the
RMB logo of yours (above) is very cool!... Also, all your recent graphics for
Anarchy have been SUPERB! You must be one of the best Amiga graphic-artists
on the scene at the moment!
Mediator.. Shame to hear about your 'seeing the light'! Are you sure you weren't
being given drugs when you went to that Christianity thing?!?
Igor.. Your graphics have been really cool lately Scott!... Your new style of
logos/fonts is very nice! Hope we can see some new works from you in the
near future!
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Kid Video.. Yo Alan!, haven't heard from you in a long time!.. Maybe we can swap
now that I'm back on the scene?? I don't have your address, so please phone
me or something OK?? Anyway, hope to see you at CES this year!
Dan.. Hi Dan!, your demo-previews looked very cool, can't wait to see the demo
when it's finished!! Well anyway, I hope you get good A-Level results next
week! See you at the CES...
Antichrist.. Are you coming to the CES again this year mate? I missed you last
year because you were there the day before me.. (I was there on the last day)
You won't get to see this Minizine, which makes me wonder why on earth I'm
writing this to you... Hmm... Hope to see you soon OK!
Well anyway, that's enough messages for this time! Hopefully this section
will get bigger and better when I get more contacts... But we'll just have to
see about that, won't we?!?
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DISK-MAGAZINES
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I know that I've covered this subject in the past, but I think the problem of
Disk-Magazines is getting worse by the minute! So I thought I'd write a bit of
text to express my views about the magazines currently on the scene...
Firstly, I think that there are FAR too many magazines on the scene. Too many
groups are releasing magazines - it wouldn't be too bad if there was a bit of
variance between each magazine, but basically they are all the same! The key
features of every magazine being:-
1. The Charts
2. News/Gossip
3. Interviews (and lots of them!)
Fair enough, those sections seem necessary for ALL magazines.. But ARE they??
The "Crusaders Eurochart" was once the only REAL chart on the scene... Being so
popular also meant that the charts would represent the scene much better, due to
the large number of voters. But now there are a million different charts, many
of which will be cheated...
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I myself think that any groups who insist on publishing charts in their own
magazines should be prepared to disclude their own group from the charts. That
is where the problem lies - many groups make the excuse that their charts would
not be "true" charts if they were not to include themselves... But the truth of
the matter is (as I discovered when I wrote my own disk-magazine on the C-64
many moons ago), the voters tend to vote for the group that is publishing the
magazine in a higher place than they would usually. That is particularly true if
the voters in question swap with members of the group that is publishing the
magazine... While I was making my own magazine, "ENDEMIC", when I counted the
votes for one issue, Endemic was rated as the 3rd best magazine on the scene....
How could this be (honestly) possible when no other magazine even FEATURED my
magazine in the charts?!?
Moving on... The "news" sections of most magazines seem to be just long lists
of "xxx left xxx and joined xxx", "xxx was kicked out of xxx for being lame",
"xxx quit the scene", etc... Who is honestly interested in all that?? Most mags
these days seem to be competing for the longest news-sections, and they do that
simply by collating all the group-changes, and pad out each one into a paragraph
- come on guys, how about doing something original for a change?!?
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Then there's the "Interviews"... What a laugh! Far too many magazines seem
to use photocopied "Interview-sheets" with STANDARD questions on.. I mean, all
the interviews seem to be the same! Standard questions are:-
"What music/films/food/drinks/magazines do you like?"
"Do you have any hobbies apart from computing?"
"What computers have you had?"
"How many years have you been computing?"
"What were your previous groups?"
"Who are your favourite coders/musicians/artists?"
"Have you any enemies in the scene?"
... etc. What is the point of having interviews if the interviewers ask the
same boring old questions EVERY time??? Think about it, OK guys??
A fourth standard section of every magazine (which I almost forgot!) are the
"Adverts"... Well, maybe this section is useful to some people, but what is the
point in padding out adverts when they might just as well be a long list of
addresses for people who want to swap? Then all the REAL adverts (sales, wants,
etc...) could be placed at the end...
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I know it is beginning to look like I have something against all disk-mags at
this point, but believe me that there are a few which I actually enjoy reading!!
(I won't mention which ones though..) But what I think would help the present
state of disk-magazines is for the editors to write things that they know will
be of interest... Is there any point in typing out loads of news / adverts when
nobody is going to read them?? Try to make interviews more interesting... And
why not make your charts more BELIEVABLE by discluding your own group (and all
groups who co-produce your magazine) from the charts...
And, as I said in a previous Message-Box, why not help reduce the number of
disk-magazines by joining forces with another diskmag. The new magazine would be
better, more likely to be read, and will be distributed to a wider public...
Finally a note to the people who just read disk-magazines... If you have any
views, new ideas for articles, or whatever - tell the people who write the mags!
But please don't go starting another new diskmagazine just because you have ONE
new idea!!! If there are things that you don't like about disk-magazines, tell
the people who write them...
Lecture over...
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THE RANDOM BIT
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TETRIS
~~~~~~
Has anybody coded a good version of this game yet? The best versions I have
seen are "TWINTRIS" and "TETRACOPY" (!)... Please send me a copy of any good
TETRIS conversions- it is still one of the best games ever made! Find my address
at the front of this minizine!
MINIZINE
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As far as I know, I was the first person to make one of these "Message-boxes"
and so I thought I'd better give it a name!... I thought "Minizine" was quite
appropriate.. It will save me from having to write "Message-box" everytime I
refer to this, erm, Minizine! Oh, the title Minizine isn't copyrighted, so feel
free to call any similar productions of your own the same... But please don't
just copy my "Message-Box" idea, unless you have some original ideas of your own
OK!!!
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GENESIS PROJECT : A brief story
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"Genesis Project" (or Genesis for short) has been active on the C-64 for over
5 years now - as a cracking/demo group. The group has around 30 members, with 25
of them being what I like to call "Stable"- the other 5 member places constantly
changing (for various reasons).
Although a couple of members of Genesis have made Amiga demos (Veda made one
a long time ago, and so did x-member Pioneer) the group has been pretty inactive
on the Amiga... But a while ago a group was formed, called "Genesis", and they
cracked a lot of games... Obviously this group didn't know that we existed, but
anyway, try not to confuse us with them OK...
A while ago Genesis had some problems when some lamers joined the group- they
started allowing people to "Join" Genesis (without permission from any other of
the Genesis members) for MONEY! In addition, they cheated the charts in their
own magazine, and this really made Genesis look bad! Anyway, these lamers have
now been kicked out of Genesis - but many guys (all over the world) still think
that they are members of Genesis!!! It's really a mess, and needs sorting out..
I think 30 members is too many as it is!!!
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THE END
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Well, that's it for this issue... I know there weren't many pages this time,
but please understand that I have a lot on lately, what with finishing my demo
on the C-64, swapping, and still having spare time for general lazing around!
Hopefully the next issue of RAISTLIN'S MESSAGE-BOX will be released sometime
in September - and will definitely have more pages than this one! Anyway, here
is my address once again:-
Raistlin / Genesis Project,
Robert Troughton,
42 Browfield Terrace,
Silsden,
Near Keighley,
West Yorkshire,
BD20 9PT.
ENGLAND.
Bye for now, and I'll see you all at the CES show in September!!
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