[comp.sys.amiga] Software Antics vs Amigo Times

fc@lexicon.com (Frank Cunningham) (02/13/90)

In article <3057@d75.UUCP> robin@sabre.uucp (Robin D. Wilson/1000000) writes:
> In article <90042.150500UH2@PSUVM.BITNET> UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer) writes:
> >1.  PHASAR 3.0    $40
> I don't mean to rain on your parade, but Antic's Amiga magazine
> just gave this away on disk for $9.95 U.S.  They also offer a deal
> to get the manuals for another $15.
> It seems as though the makers of PHA$AR 3.0 are getting ready to 
> ship v. 4.0.

Flame On-> this is one of the things that pisses me off about Antic's
Amiga+ ragazine. The stuff they put on the disk is often some useless,
but possibly cute, hack or else something with a commercial tie-in. The
tie-in this time is particularly blatant, since Antic is the publisher
of PHASAR. I have let my subscription die. I was planning to sub to
Amigo Times instead. Any further rumors about their future, Issue 1.10 ?
-- 
-Frank Cunningham   smart: fc@lexicon.com	phone: (617) 891-6790
		    dumb: {husc6,linus,harvard,bbn}!spdcc!lexicon!fc
		    snail: Lexicon Inc.  100 Beaver St.  Waltham MA 02174
Why are viola jokes so short ?		So violinists can remember them.

hrlaser@crash.cts.com (Harv Laser) (02/14/90)

In article <564@lexicon.com> fc@lexicon.com (Frank Cunningham) writes:
>In article <3057@d75.UUCP> robin@sabre.uucp (Robin D. Wilson/1000000) writes:
>> In article <90042.150500UH2@PSUVM.BITNET> UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer) writes:
>> >1.  PHASAR 3.0    $40
>> I don't mean to rain on your parade, but Antic's Amiga magazine
>> just gave this away on disk for $9.95 U.S.  They also offer a deal
>> to get the manuals for another $15.
>> It seems as though the makers of PHA$AR 3.0 are getting ready to 
>> ship v. 4.0.
>
>Flame On-> this is one of the things that pisses me off about Antic's
>Amiga+ ragazine. The stuff they put on the disk is often some useless,
>but possibly cute, hack or else something with a commercial tie-in. The
>tie-in this time is particularly blatant, since Antic is the publisher
>of PHASAR. I have let my subscription die. I was planning to sub to
>Amigo Times instead. Any further rumors about their future, Issue 1.10 ?
>-- 
Amigo Times:: I was waiting for someone to ask about this magazine.
I write for them (freelance) and have been published in every one of their
issues since the first one.  As you probably are aware, ATimes was
supposed to be a monthly publication.  However, over the course of two
years (since the first issue came out) they've published a total of
exactly NINE issues.  Hardly what you'd call monthly.

Issue 1.9 was the last one shipped and that was a few months ago.  
Issue 1.10, for which I wrote, but have never been paid, is, to the best
of my personal knowledge, still sitting at the printer, where it's
BEEN sitting for at LEAST a month, probably longer.  The stuff I wrote
for 1.10 was submitted to the editors in October '89. 

My best guess would be that Amigo Times is in the midst of financial
difficulties and whether or not they survive and actually publish 
another issue is a mystery. I do know that it has been a very expensive
magazine to produce what with the "color on (almost) every page."

Eyo Sama, the owner, publisher, and head guy of Sama Software which
puts out Amigo Times knows how to give his magazine a great look... he
can write in the Postscript language and can make Professional Page
sit up on its hind legs and yodel opera, so it really pisses me off
to see the magazine floundering like this and it also pains me to say
this (since I write for them) but at THIS point in time it probably
wouldn't be a REAL good idea to send in a subscription check until
they can prove they can actually deliver a monthly magazine on a timely
basis.

By all means, if you see #1.10 come out and sitting on a newsstand
and you want it, buy it, but whether or not you'd actually get a
complete fulfillment on a new subscription is anyone's guess.

This leads to another new interesting rumor and that is that a certain
unnamed Amiga/64 magazine published in the MidWest is planning to
buy out not only AmigoTimes but another well-known Amiga oriented
magazine of Canadian extraction and combine the best of both of them
with its current magazine, that is, the graphics and layout beauty
of ATimes plus the technical content of the "other one" along with the
news and wit and "hard hitting" columns already existing in that
Iowa-based publication.. or maybe they're not.  

However, it's NOT a rumor that INFO magazine is going to become a
monthly with their June issue and is also dropping CBM 8-bit coverage
completely.  INFO, although a small organization, has published over
30 issues (bi-monthly) during the last few years and from all I've
read and heard, they are quite healthy.

Disclaimer: I write for both Amigo Times and INFO, for which I get
money (usually) but I'm not an employee of either and don't own any
"stock" in either.  

bn@attcc.UUCP (02/15/90)

> Flame On-> this is one of the things that pisses me off about Antic's
> Amiga+ ragazine. The stuff they put on the disk is often some useless,
> but possibly cute, hack or else something with a commercial tie-in. The
> tie-in this time is particularly blatant, since Antic is the publisher
> of PHASAR. I have let my subscription die. I was planning to sub to
> Amigo Times instead. Any further rumors about their future, Issue 1.10 ?

You get mad when a magazine gives you a $70 accounting package, and a $50
spelling checker???? I thought these two packages ALONE were worth the $39.95
subscription price.

Bo Najdrovsky
UUCP:  att!mwood!attcc!bn
INET:  mwood!attcc!bn@ATT.ATT.COM

keithh@atreus.uucp (Keith Hanlan) (02/17/90)

In article <1499@crash.cts.com> hrlaser@crash.cts.com (Harv Laser) writes:
>In article <564@lexicon.com> fc@lexicon.com (Frank Cunningham) writes:
>>In article <3057@d75.UUCP> robin@sabre.uucp (Robin D. Wilson/1000000) writes:
	Variously about AmigoTimes...

	I've been interested in what is happening to AmigoTimes for a while
	now. Harv's news piqued my curiosity again so I phoned AmigoTimes and
	spoke to Lisa. Turns out that Harv's rumours are fact and that INFO
	and AmigoTimes are consolidating. AmigoTimes V1i10 is going to be
	published with the next INFO magazine since AT 1i10 is complete and
	ready to roll. It will be an interesting hybrid issue. After that they
	will be published more uniformly in a single format.

	Expect to see the hybrid issue beginning of March. It'll be a 
	collector's item.  :-)

	The bottom line was financial - they grew too fast. They went 
	from 5,000 to 50,000 issues in less than a year.

	Another interesting note is that apparently they will have some of
	the Amiga Transactor's writers writing for them. This doesn't bode
	well for Transactor...

	Lisa sounded very encouraging. I wish them well.

Keith Hanlan
Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada 613-765-4645
uunet!bnrgate!atreus!keithh or (via bitnet) keithh@bnr.ca
"You're making me feel wierd Adrian" Jack Carney to Adrian LeDuc, Apartment Zero

fc@lexicon.com (Frank Cunningham) (02/20/90)

In article <19000034@attcc.UUCP> bn@attcc.UUCP writes:
> You get mad when a magazine gives you a $70 accounting package, and a $50
> spelling checker???? I thought these two packages ALONE were worth the $39.95
> subscription price.

I already own the accounting package, the version they're 'giving
away' is obsolete, they're charging $20 for the manual, if they have
one to sell you, and I know how to spell, thank you. I dislike Antic
charging me for something I've already bought from them. It's the both
the conflict of interest and the fact that I'm paying twice for the
program that irritate me. Since I used to subscribe, I didn't have the
option to decline the losing disk. I still view the 'giveaway' as a
convenient way for Antic to advertise their upgrade at my expense, by
avoiding having to find something new or unique for the disk. (rant
rant)

-frank
-- 
-Frank Cunningham   smart: fc@lexicon.com	phone: (617) 891-6790
		    dumb: {husc6,linus,harvard,bbn}!spdcc!lexicon!fc
		    snail: Lexicon Inc.  100 Beaver St.  Waltham MA 02174
Why are viola jokes so short ?		So violinists can remember them.

robin@sabre.uucp (Robin D. Wilson/1000000) (02/21/90)

In article <570@lexicon.com> fc@lexicon.com (Frank Cunningham) writes:
>In article <19000034@attcc.UUCP> bn@attcc.UUCP writes:
>> You get mad when a magazine gives you a $70 accounting package, and a $50
>> spelling checker???? I thought these two packages ALONE were worth the $39.95
>> subscription price.
>I already own the accounting package, the version they're 'giving
>away' is obsolete, they're charging $20 for the manual, if they have
>one to sell you, and I know how to spell, thank you. I dislike Antic
>charging me for something I've already bought from them. It's the both
>the conflict of interest and the fact that I'm paying twice for the
>program that irritate me. Since I used to subscribe, I didn't have the
>option to decline the losing disk. I still view the 'giveaway' as a
>convenient way for Antic to advertise their upgrade at my expense, by
>avoiding having to find something new or unique for the disk. (rant
>rant)

So if I buy a Disk mag that has software on that I could have already bought 
elsewhere, the mag is a rag and they cheated me?  I think not.  It sounds
to me like your mad that they sold the software you bought at full (or regular
discounted price) for a fraction of what you payed for it.  For the rest of
us it was a good deal.  Some people get really mad when they buy an album and 
one of the songs stinks, but that's not the record comany's fault; is it?
If antic wants to advertise their new software by giving away teh old, that's
really their perogative -- after all they do own the magazine.


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bn@attcc.UUCP (02/23/90)

* Written  9:29 am  Feb 20, 1990 by fc@lexicon.com in attcc.UUCP:comp.s.amiga *

> I already own the accounting package, the version they're 'giving
> away' is obsolete, they're charging $20 for the manual, if they have
> one to sell you, and I know how to spell, thank you. I dislike Antic
> charging me for something I've already bought from them. It's the both

Please don't get hostile. I know how to spell also... but everybody who types 
makes typos. Also, you are looking at things from a very singular point of
of view. Not everybody has this software package, and not everybody shelled
out the $60 for it (PHA$AR). I get the impression that you are just pissed,
that you payed the bucks for the software package, and now they are giving
it away. While I can see the point in that, you are forgeting that you are
a registered (I hope) user, and you get the upgrades. Those who got the
software package in the magazine will just have to purchase the new package
for the entire price. Let's not flame a company for trying to attract more
business. I  think that what they are doing  makes a perfect business sense.
BTW, I have NO (repeat NO) connection with Antic Software/Publishing. I just
think that you are gettin upset for no good reason.

Bo Najdrovsky
UUCP:  att!mwood!attcc!bn
INET:  mwood!attcc!bn@ATT.ATT.COM