It is a challenge, from a modern frame of mind, to imagine the late 1980s world of disk magazines. Huge quantities of information can now be exchanged at the drop of a hat, anywhere, virtually instantly. Back then, however, you had paper magazines and relatively sparsely used Bulletin Board Systems. That was pretty much it.
In the summer of 1986, the first issue of “ST NEWS” was released. It was a 35 Kb document to be loaded into the most popular Atari ST word processor of the time, “1st Word”. It was put on a disk and the disk was copied at user meetings. A disk magazine was born.
The Canadian disk magazine “F.A.S.T.E.R.” drastically changed everything. Having started in autumn of 1986, this commercial disk magazine featured a very smooth GEM-based user interface from which articles could be selected and viewed. It looked very professional, and it was clear that “ST NEWS” needed to get with the program. As I had just translated the manual for a new Basic interpreter from German to Dutch, I had at my disposal “GfA Basic”, a brand spanking new replacement for the simply horrible “ST Basic”. The threshold was low enough for me to try out my meagre coding talents and try to somehow provide “ST NEWS” with a user interface like “F.A.S.T.E.R.” Mine was slower, but it worked.
As the years progressed, the “ST NEWS” user interface gradually became better. The odd issue even got sent abroad. I got enthusiastic reactions from ever more distant locations. Former C64 programmer Stefan “Digital Insanity” Posthuma joined the team and replaced slow program parts by faster ones. A network of contacts within the Atari demo scene improved editorial content (other authors wrote about really cool stuff) and got each issue to have a cool piece of music (Jochen “Mad Max” Hippel provided cutting-edge conversions of C64 tunes). Stefan built in ever more elaborate scrolling message screens. The synergy between him and me – fueled by a shared love of metal and synthesizer music, action movies and certain alcoholic beverages – led to a barrage of extended review introduction stories, real-time articles covering more or less interesting events, and basically anything and everything we deemed fit to include. We were particularly proud of the issue released late summer 1989 when Stefan and me had spent two weeks in the United Kingdom to visit key people and personal heroes in the world of ST gaming during the “LateST NEWS Quest”. From 1988 to about 1992, “ST NEWS” went from strength to strength. After that, issues occurred rather less frequently until it ended summer 1996.
To some readers, “ST NEWS” was probably an idiosyncratically idiotic hodge-podge. To (hopefully) many it was just weird but nonetheless interesting. “ST NEWS” got me my first job, and nudged a certain Lost Boy of London on the fast track to international gaming stardom. It was a most interesting and dynamic window of time to be active in.
Over the past half year, the ST NEWS site has been overhauled. Check it out to discover:
– All articles!
– All demos!
– All music!
– All scrollers
– All on-disk source/bonus materials
– All issues downloadable in optimised .ST images for your favourite emulator
– Vastly extended and improved 100+ picture & video gallery, newly scanned where possible
– Fully searchable
– Mobile device compatible
– Random article option
– Bonus complete “Ultimate Virus Killer” book
Thanks to Frederic “Dyno” Poeydomenge for endless work, help and patience, with additional awesomeness by Mellowman!