Disk to Paper
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From Diskzine to Fanzine
My Reasons and Views
By Tony Greenwood for ST+ Diskmag

First we have to commend Dave Hollis for keeping ST+ Alive, Interesting and Topical for the last two years, 24 Issues in 2 years in the current ATARI climate is no mean feat....

But even Dave admits ST+ in it's current form is starting to look a little stale, readers mention that the adverts and a few other collums are looking a little sad as they never change, User input (The death of most diskmags) is drying up,and the pure enjoyment of making a Diskmagazine was starting to fade..

Taking the above into account, Dave still would not give up, did not want ST+ to die, he still want's ST+ to keep going.... So I put my idea forward to change from disk based to paper, Dave was apprahensive if not a little scared at the thought..But Once I explained the plan,the possibilities and asked "Why not?" then there wasn't much to stop us,

The original plan?, My thought was that many ATARIans are maybe sat at home with there respective Word Processor and Printer, with nothing much solid to do with it, My idea was to let Anyone and Everyone write there own page, then send it to Dave who would in turn photocopy them, staple them all together and there you have it, a Fanzine, what could be more simple,
But we needed a Gauranteed page count in case people where slow to respond, Two of us just didn't seem enough, So wanting someone with some DTP knowledge who could put our articles on paper Dave contacted our mutual friend Gordon Storey, he was quick to see the possibilies of the fanzine and immediatly offered to help with dtp and some articles, So now there are three of us,
Unfortunatly Gordon was not as keen on letting everyone make there own pages, Quite rightly pointing out that this would lead to a haphazzard looking publication with some pages printed with an inkjet or maybe a lazer printer, and some on dot matrix, personaly I like this idea as it gives a more user feel to it and is less work for the editing team.... But Dave also so the merit of Gordons suggestion and thus democrocy won the day and the current format was decided upon,
It is now a cross between the two ideas, YOU can still design your own page, set the layout, fonts and graphics etc, But then send to Dave for general editing who will then pass to Gordon for printing, OR you can simply write an article in the time honoured way of simple ASCII and maybe send some pictures as well..

If the current format of the Fanzine fails, then we can give my original idea a shot, sort of a Plan B if you will...

Anyway I digress, this article is supposedly to give you an insight into why the change from disk to paper, Well I can only realy speak for me personally, as many of you will know I have been involved with producing diskmagazines for many years now, as the founder of STOSSER diskzine in early 1993 and having to produce that on a monthly basis for nearly two years,My diskmagazine shells for at least another Seven other Publications and my two year involvement with ST+, I have also written articles for just about every diskmagazine on the scene, Whats left ?, I have had the good fortune to have Articles and tutorials published in high street mags such as ST Format and PC Mart as well as being commisioned to write a series for ATARI World magazine,ST Handbook another A5 magazine that had a short life also published articles from myself...I have web pages that are well recieved and contain hundreds of HTML files written by me..

In a nutshell I am bored! Talk about "Been there done that?"

But the thought of activly being involved in producing such a fanzine, well this has got my interest going, something that excites me :) and it is all realy that simple, my only reason for throwing myself into this project is the fact that i will enjoy it, It matters not if the project is a succes or a failure, we don't care, so long as we give it our best shot...

Tony Greenwood...The birth of ST+ Fanzine, day 3

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