Diskmags

As the name implies, diskmags were magazines distributed on disks that could only be read on a computer. Most of them took advantage of their respective electronic platform and packed their articles into executable programs with graphics, sound, and a custom interface. Multimedia, if you will, before the term was widely used.
Disk magazines exist to this day, although they are mainly spread over the Internet and not on physical media.

The first diskmags I encountered as a kid were commercial German magazines available at kiosks in the early nineties. Each disk came in a basic paper envelope that had a proper magazine cover printed on the front (plus a piece of cardboard for stability). The disks not only contained articles but also a lot of software, like games, utilities, demos and, in an oddly recursive manner, additional disk magazines from the cracker and demo scene. How the latter could legally be distributed on a commercial product always puzzled me a bit. To my understanding, quite a few scene people helped to create (legal) programs for publishing on the disks.

In this section, you can find links to the magazine issues that I've already written about. Keep in mind that this won't ever be a complete list, as I intend to only go through the issues I bought back then. The cover scans are of the actual magazines I own. Expect some smudges here and there.

Magic Disk 64 Magic Disk 64 was issued monthly by CP Verlag and one of the most widespread diskmags in the German-speaking parts of Europe. The magazine lasted from 1987 until roughly the middle of the nineties. The software contained on the disk was usually a mix of games and utilities, like graphics programs, BASIC extensions, intro designers and so on. Magic Disk 64 12/89 Magic Disk 64 01/90 Magic Disk 64 02/90 Magic Disk 64 03/90 Magic Disk 64 04/90 More coming soon..

Game On Game On was Magic Disk 64's sister magazine which had a much larger focus on games. It also regularly contained demos and diskmags from the C64 scene. Game On 01/90 Game On 02/90 Game On 03/90 Game On 04/90 Game On 05/90 More coming soon...

Golden Disk 64 Golden Disk 64 started as a more expensive special edition of Magic Disk 64 and appeared bi-monthly. It had no magazine part on the disk (except for instructions) and instead came with applications and games that were deemed higher quality to justify the higher price. Eventually, Golden Disk 64 only featured games. Golden Disk 08/90 Golden Disk 09/90 Golden Disk 11/90 More coming soon...