Living With Total Amiga
By Robert Williams

My Amiga Roots

I can still remember how excited I was when I unwrapped my A500plus at Christmas in 1991. Little did I know that twelve years later the Amiga would still be an important part of my life. Before the Amiga we had a family Amstrad 464 but it didn't really get used much. With the A500 I really got into computing, initially I played games and used the computer to produce my GCSE coursework. I was considering upgrading the A500 when the 1200 came out so instead I upgraded to an A1200 in 1992. Over the next couple of years I acquired a hard drive and RAM expansion for the machine. In 1994 I was looking enviously at the new '030 accelerators for the A1200 that were coming to market but in the end I decided on an A4000/030 which was less than twice the price of an accelerator and offered much better expansion options.

Over the next couple of years I expanded the A4000 with a graphics card (a CyberVision 64) and an '060 accelerator (a CyberStorm Mk II). The graphics card was one of my best investments - I found it breathed new life into the Amiga especially as I was interested in DTP and graphics. My last major upgrade was to buy a CyberStorm PPC accelerator at the tail end of 1997, which, sadly, is only now being superseded.

I was always an avid magazine reader and used to buy most of the monthly Amiga titles available in the UK (which in 1992 numbered around 10). Among my favorite Amiga titles were Amiga Shopper and CU Amiga. I also subscribed to JAM (Just Amiga Monthly) and later Em (which concentrated on desktop publishing). Both these magazines were subscription only titles produced on the Amiga by enthusiasts. They were to provide inspiration later on.

SEAL

Strangely, looking back on it, until 1998 I had never really met another Amiga user to talk to! I had a few school friends who were Amiga owners but they had mostly abandoned their machines by the time I got my A500plus. Certainly none of them upgraded to OS2. I did get on the Internet in 1996 and was happy to find a lively community on the comp.sys.amiga newsgroups.

In early 1998 I received a phone call out of the blue asking if I would be interested in a new Amiga user group. The call was from Mick Sutton and he had found my details in the contact section of Em magazine. There were eight Amigans at that first meeting which took place at Mick's house and by the middle of the year the new club was holding regular meetings at a venue in Basildon twice a month. The name South Essex Amiga Link was decided on by a vote of the members.

Clubbed

The seeds of a SEAL magazine were sown at one of SEAL's first meeting at our current venue in the middle of 1998. I prepared a few pages of a fictional Amiga magazine to be used in a demonstration of PageStream. The demo went down well and several members (most importantly Mick who was (and is) the club's chairman) liked what they saw so much that they suggested we start a club magazine.

We held a special meeting to discuss the magazine and several important decisions were made. The magazine was to be non-profit making and was to run without advertising if necessary. This meant the magazine could survive in a climate when many commercial and enthusiast titles had ceased publication. Each issue would be A4 size with a color printed cover to demonstrate what could be achieved with an all-Amiga production. Finally the name "Clubbed" was chosen.

Production of Clubbed continued more or less regularly for 9 issues with the magazine's subscriber base gradually growing. The magazine was generally well received and we got great feedback from readers, especially at the shows we attended. We were also lucky to be given several mentions in the remaining newsstand magazines during that period, Amiga Format and Amiga Active.

Total Amiga

During 2001 we were preparing for the first World of Amiga South East show and it seemed like a good time to give Clubbed a bit of a re-design. Mick Sutton suggested that, as the magazine was becoming more of a general Amiga magazine and less of a club title, a change of name would also be a good idea. After a good deal of brain storming the name "Total Amiga", suggested by Mick's wife Sharon, was selected. A new logo was designed and the layout of the magazine was re-worked with a new style and fonts. The last vestiges of Total Amiga's heritage as a club title such as the column by the Chairman were removed.

Total Amiga was launched at WoASE 2001 with the backing of both Alan Redhouse of Eyetech and Fleecy Moss of Amiga.

The new name and high-profile launch proved successful with the number of subscribers rapidly climbing. With this came more advertisers who enabled us to increase the number of pages in each issue, from 36 in the first issue of Clubbed to 52 in the latest Total Amiga.

With Total Amiga we have been able to attract more contributors to the magazine (helping to fill those extra pages). We are pleased to accept contributions large and small from all types of Amiga user. In issue 15 Michael Carrillo (our promotions man) managed to persuade three writers well known from commercial magazines to contribute. It was great to see the names Andrew Korn, John Chander and Richard Drummond in an Amiga magazine again.

Total Amiga wouldn't be possible without all our other contributors. In particular I should mention Mick Sutton who is the driving force behind SEAL, looks after Total Amiga's finances and writes for the magazine. Sam Byford, another SEAL member is also a very regular contributor.

In the magazine we aim to cover all aspects of the Amiga community. However as we are reliant on our writers (none of whom get paid) the actual content of the magazine largely reflects their interests. We try to avoid too much speculation and navel gazing concentrating on useful information such as reviews and tutorials hopefully making the vast majority of the magazine interesting for everyone.

We're proud to be able to say that every aspect of Total Amiga is produced using Amiga software. The magazine is laid out in PageStream and all the graphics are originated in Amiga programs such as ImageFX, Photogenics and DrawStudio. The magazine web site (http://www.totalamiga.org) is written in GoldEd Studio, compiled using HSC and the graphics are made with Amiga software too. Behind the scenes our subscriber details are stored using the shareware database Fiasco and the finances are recorded in Digita Money Matters.

From the first issue of Clubbed to issue 14 of Total Amiga the main production computer was my A3000 with a CyberStorm PPC and CyberVision PPC. Unfortunately my CyberStorm broke down just after issue 14 was completed and with no obvious replacement ready I moved to an Amithlon system which was up and running using the SCSI hard disk from the 3000 within an hour. So far Amithlon has done us proud, issue 15 production went very smoothly and the extra speed is a real boon. I'm looking forward to OS4 on the AmigaOne and hope it will be stable enough on release for use as a production system.

For me personally, each issue of the magazine takes up all my spare time during the month before publication. For the rest of the time between issues there are always magazine related tasks going on such as planning the next issues, organizing contributors, dealing with orders or actually writing my own articles. Almost all the time I really enjoy the work (It can get a bit stressful on occasion) and the three monthly schedule means I can keep it up without the magazine taking over my life entirely.

With regard to the future we've been covering AmigaOS 4, the AmigaOne and other developments on the Amiga scene since they were announced and I'm looking forward to see them come to fruition. Mick Sutton's AmigaOne G4XE (which he will be previewing in issue 16) has just arrived and we are trying to arrange the loan of a CyberStorm PPC so we can try AmigaOS 4 as soon as it is available. Once the new OS is out we will be re-evaluating the magazine in the hope that we can move to bi-monthly publication. This largely depends on attracting new regular contributors.

Here's hoping that new hardware and software will bring back some of that feeling of excitement I had when I pulled the wrapping paper off my A500plus all those years ago.

Robert Williams
Editor, Total Amiga
editor@totalamiga.org
http://www.totalamiga.org/