D-Tect/Reviews
Hack-Mag issue #2 (1990, 22.11, ECS Multifile Diskmag)
Review by Glenn Lunder
The second issue of HM opens with a little 'intro' - a title picture of a monitor smashing through glass set to music. The mag itself is very well presented, perhaps the best design on the scene at the time it was released! You have to remember that HM was competing against Crack Journal at the time, so they easily had the best code. Like in most old mags, too many pages are taken up by unnecessary drivel like humor articles and small comic strip pages, but overall the mag represents an overall informative read. But party reports without results...booh! =) Some critical news editing would also have been in its place; news items like that 4-Mat left Anarchy for TRSI, or that Tarkus Team is dead were obviously wrong. The mag announces the new members Mr.Megaforce (canada, soon sysop) and Rockford (germany trade).
The first time I tried booting the mag (no caches/OCS), it showed the intro just fine but gurued at the first page of the mag. I peeked around the disk, and found the way to make it work; boot to your harddisk first. Then cd to the disk in question, then cd to the directory 'articles'. Now type KillAGA (provided KillAGA is in your path ofcourse) to the main hackmag executable. The commandline may look like this: 'KillAGA df0:HACKMAG2'. Get it? This should make the mag work, though it still has some problems with catching keyboard presses - mouse clicking works fine.
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1 -- Note: See review!
Hack-Mag issue #3 (1991, 03.02, ECS Multifile Diskmag)
Review by Glenn Lunder
The intro (coded by new member Satan) is much cooler than last time. It opens with an ok pic by Spider, of one of the Gremlins clutching a D-Tect logo, then goes into the intro itself. Not a terribly inspired affair, but features a starfield, bobs, and the obligatory scroller at the the bottom of the screen. On to the mag, we experienced exactly the same compatibility problems as with the last issue... but this time the solution we offered then does NOT work! Disaster! So sometimes even Amiga owners need to retort to emulators... :)
Editorially and graphically not much has changed, the design is identical to the last issue. Not many deep articles this time either, but it's a good hardcore scene mag. Nothing much more to say really, this is an average issue. Support for the mag was picking up, this issue has much more outside contributions than before.
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1.
Hack-Mag #5 (1991, 29.06, ECS Multifile Diskmag)
Review by Glenn Lunder
After a small bit of loading with a nice ascii screen to look at, the intro starts. And it looks really good, actually! =) It's actually among the simplest intros ever, just a pic, music and a scroller, but the picture at least shows some effort on Spider's part!
Well, onto the mag: The first thing that strikes us is the title logo picture, again by Spider - nice.
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1.
Hack-Mag issue #6 (1991, 22.09, ECS Multifile Diskmag)
Review by Glenn Lunder
This mag from 91 works perfectly fine on my 50mhz 030-machine... Astonishing! Well, installing to harddisk wasn't much of a problem either, so I booted the thing. The intro is great! Cool cyber-OS design, metal-skeleton Terminator picture by Spider and thumping cyber-techno soundtrack by Twisted! It certainly sets the mood for some nice reading... The mag itself is well-laid out, and there is certainly enough to read. There's only one module, again by Twisted, but it's very cool. It's got a melody that I simply looooove... This old mag brings back some of the 'magic' from lost times. For a nostalgic read, recommended!
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0. -- Note: KillAGA.
