A600 wb 2.05 : YES%Multi-tasks : NO - auto-boots only.
Display : PAL& This I guess can be considered a&mainstream scene mag if that's not a&contradiction in terms. It contains&all the usual stuff such as scene&news, reviews, interviews, party&reports, advertisements and the rest.&There's a few non-scene articles and a&music section but nothing else that&makes it distinguishable from the&rest. This is it's only real fault. It&has no noticeable style of it's own.&Everything is very well done but&there's nothing about it that stands&out enough to make you remember the&magazine. That said, it has heaps of&support so I guess it's respected&within the scene. This it deserves as&I found myself reading most of the&articles, something I can't say about&a lot of the other mags I've looked at
while doing all these reviews.& Top Secret 14 is a two disk affair&with the second disk packed with a&gallery of grey-scale photos of scene&people and parties. This gives a good&indication of those involved in the&European Amiga scene. It would appear&the average scene guy (gals are rarer&than multi-tasking scene mags) is just&your typical middle-class, suburban-&bred teenager with a slight tendency&to wear glasses, something I'll be&needing soon with the amount of text"I've read from the monitor lately.& The party pictures are interesting&too for revealing what dingy places&most of them seem to be held in. Will&these be seen as the Cavern's of the!
[3mStolen Data
& A feature of this issue of Top&Secret is quite a few articles on the&scanning or copying of other peoples&art. The main one begins... "One of&the worst developments in the scene is&the stupidity of graphicians..." While&the reasons for not doing it hardly&need to be explained, (you're pretty&dense if you can't figure some out for&yourself), the reasons for it are&quite varied. Other than the obvious&one of it's easier, some of the other&ones are... "people don't care", "it&improves the overall standard of Amiga&art", "everybody does it", "a new&picture is created" and the killer,&"it has been proved several times that&copied pictures win the competitions".
Is this last one true?& Of the above the only reason with a&legitimate rational would be the&creation of a new picture. Like a new&interpretation of a piece of music, an&artist copying another's picture may&add insights into the original while&producing a work with a value of it's&own. Then again, they may not either.&You would have to be good first for&this to work. If doing this the source
picture should be credited.& I have tried copying art using my&Turbo Silver ray-tracer. If you think&using a paint program to copy a&picture is hard, then don't try using&nineties in the future? Somehow I&doubt it. The ages of these guys may&also explain the lack of substance in&most of their demos, art and music.&Just not enough experience of life to&put any back into them. To continue&the musical analogy, Chuck Berry was&in his thirties when he wrote Sweet&Little Sixteen. It's something a&sixteen year old guy could never have&got so right. And come Monday I guess&most of these party guys are back in&class again. But that's not a&criticism kids. By the time you've got&that all important experience you'll&have the coding and artistic knowledge&to turn the Western World's corporate&controlled culture on it's head. Only&trouble is most of you will be&accountants, bankers, lawyers or&something in insurance or advertising
by then. Eh?& The interface to Top Secret 14 is&good and slick. It makes use of the&right mouse button which makes a&change but they forgot to duplicate&this with the keyboard control by&using the shift key in conjunction&with the cursor keys. The cursor keys&aren't read as well as they should be&either with key-presses being ignored!quite often. Otherwise it's good.& The look of the mag is also good&and, unlike some, consistent&throughout. This is quite a feat as&the clip art used has been produced by&six different artists. All of it's&worth a second look too. Nice. There's&an OK piece of music playing too but&it sounds very familiar. No front page
picture though.& One topic in the magazine is about&explaining the scene to outsiders. One&found this improved his social&standing among his class mates with&them thinking it was pretty neat that&this sub-culture existed while a&teacher asked him for scene reports on&countries they were studying. This&ain't the normal reaction in NZ to&mentioning you're interested in&computers. I wonder if bank managers&in Europe would understand? I'll spare&you my experiences but consider this&comment by the editor of New Zealand&PC World in it's June 1993 editorial.&a ray-tracer. The picture I attempted&was one of Escher's, though not one of&his more mind and space bending works.&The hard part was not the modeling of&the objects in the picture but getting&the lighting and camera position&right. After trying to do something&like this you never view the picture&the same way again. And would I have&released it? Well I had thoughts of&producing a slideshow of Escher's work&all done with the ray-tracer and&calling it Reflections Of Escher or&such like. I wasn't trying to do exact&copies but attempting to see if I&could get close to the same feel in&the pictures. As I eventually&put it in the too hard basket for a&while the question of whether to&release it was a bit academic. Learnt&more about Escher though, which is the&only sensible reason for copying
anyone's work.& But straight digitised copies&shouldn't be included in spreadable&productions. Copying another's work to&learn about it is of course acceptable&but the results should also not be&spread if it's just a straight copy.&And if you must copy or digitise&someone elses work at least credit the&source. If you liked the pic enough to#copy it, it's the least you can do.
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&(Yes, I bought it.) "Writing about&computers can be a thankless task etc.&etc... And all this time the&non-computer speaking world regards&you with a mixture of suspicion,&derision and grudging envy." I sure&know about the derision anyway. Are&these attitudes more common in NZ than&elsewhere I wonder? I suspect so.
Comments please.& There's also a column titled Crime&Zone where they interview a guy who&works in a computer store and sells&copies of commercial software to the&cracking groups. His opinion of the&best group? The one that pays the&most. And parties? They used to be&good as you could get lots of copies&of stuff but they're not so good now&for the opposite reason. So if you're&in the habit of using pirate software,&just remember the type of person whose pockets you are helping to line.& My opinion of this magazine has&gone up since starting this review.&There's so much else I could write&about. There's articles against animal&experimentation and in favour of&whaling, a Yugoslavian Scene Report,&(just like any other countries'&report), a 10 page interview with&Jester of Sanity and a review of his&music tape, an opinion of Grapevine as&a waste of three disks, how the&Silents organise their seventy plus&world-wide membership, what the trends&are in the scene and so on. All good
reading.& There's no explanation of how to&subscribe but their address is Top&Secret, Hemmersvej 34, 7800 Skive,&DENMARK. If you want a copy you could&try sending some disks to that address&but don't blame me if you don't get a response.& Top Secret's proved to be much&better than I thought it would be when&I first looked at it so it must be&doing something right to attract&reasonably good articles. So, good all!round but without the Wow factor.
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[3mGraphic What?
[23mN Is there anyone with English as their first language who likes the termN"graphician"? I've tried to say it but it makes me spit everywhere. I approveNof it's meaning and it's much better than artist but it's one ugly word. It'sNgreat that all these Europeans are producing stuff in English so I don't mindNthem adding words to the language, (subset: EuroEnglish?), but perhaps theyNcould search through their own languages for something less teeth grinding.NOne that covers everything from painting to font making etc. And when, whereNand who first used "graphician"? I'd love to know the culprit's name. And ifNEnglish was his first language I suggest his lips should be sewn together
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