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                         "Chosneck # 2" by MYSTIC BYTES
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system ... Atari Falcon, 14 MB RAM, RGB/VGA

credits .. intros by Reservoir Gods, DHS & Evolution
           shell by Sqward and Moonwalker
           msx by Lotek Style
           articles by Grey, Saulot, Felice, RafalK, AdamK, EarX, Mikro and some
                       others

size ..... 7,6 MB on harddisk

release .. o3/2k4

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Yes, yes, yes! Finally, one year after  Chosneck # 3 we now get issue 2, overall
the 4th issue  at all. Confused  now? Ok, so  some short info: Issue # 0 was the
first  and came along  with the  Music disk "On Edge Of The Abyss", so naturally
issue 1 was already the second. Issue 3 is really issue three but false numbered
as it seems  the polish blokes have drunk too much vodka  while working on it...
So they close the hole with the fourth regular issue now... Don't take the issue
numbers too serious then...

After I tortured my modem to leech  the marvellous  6,5 MB I was a  bit mixed up
with the  used splitting  program, a small  info in the archive  would have done
fine as there are several splitting programs are around. Happily I have SPLITTER
(the one that  was used here) and after I copied all  the files to my  Falcon, I
joined the files  again, depacking the final magazine, that fills over 7,5 MB on
my harddisk then, what a load.

The mag starts  with the usual  menu screen, where  you can chose if you want to
run the mag with or without intro and what screen refreshrate and screen you use
as well as what kind of replay frequency you want for your ears.

I took "with" intro  and started  the thing, the first  one is designed for CT6o
only, so no  way to take a look  at it. The second is done by DAMO  of RESERVOIR
GODS and  a quite stylish  thingie, really  well done  for the first big  coding
experiences on  Falcon! Typical abstract  SH3 grafix, a  rumbling tune  and some
small eye  teasers like blobs  and stuff that turn out to real little killers in
the end with the help of Earx... Wow, wow, wow... What a good start!



Hui, nice puzzle effect... As I couldn't make snapshots of the mag you get intro
pictures then :)



You should see this morphing vector in motion!

Unfortunately DAMO  advised to  use the  VGA1oo Hz  mode that  folded  my screen
together... arf! After  my SC1435 already died while working on this magazine, I
yelled loud as the screen folds together and stood black on my Philips VGA then.
I don't need more broken monitors, man! Btw... 6o Hz mode works fine as well :P

Just want to  mention that there  is a 3rd intro in  the archive that isn't used
for the magazine, it is done  by CoolGirls (whoever they are...) and  falls back
behind Damo's  stuff a lot... If you  haven't checked  it yet, you  haven't lost
anything... The  accompanied readme  is again full of dull text and I like it to
stay on the blacklist as I don't need those cowgirls...

Finally I reached the  main menu, short after a stylish loading grafix. The menu
looks again very stunning... and Lotek Style torments our ears with some kind of
drum'n'bass music, together with speech  synthesis that reminds hard to some old
UCM soundtrack at this second... :)
Right here, the menu is stunning and blasts away everything, there wasn't and is
no other magazine released on Falcon that can reach this styling... it is just a
fact everyone has to accept! I really like it...

The menu with the list of contents is fairly long and offers over 5o articles to
read. Right at this  point Chosneck is no exception, although the time to create
this issue was fairly long, Grey didn't matched it to hold contact to the bigger
contents of  the previous issue. But this  is understandable when you check that
Grey wrote  big parts of  the magazine alone. There were a few other writers but
mainly  with max. a handfull of articles, mostly less... This is unfortunately a
bad sign for the future of the magazine.

The magazine  offers again a big range  of topics and avoids, again, to bring us
detailed  reviews  on several  softwares, so Grey  is talking  about God and the
world and the  scene itself, with his very special slang a funny read! He really
gives Chosneck a special note that can't be copied by other magazines!

So Grey  drags 11 (!) freaks into  the spotlight for interviews, apart from some
polish 8bit sceners  also Xi of Satantronic, Art of TBL, Klocek of Syntax or SH3
of Reservoir Gods. He also  tortures his mind about the current state and future
of the polish Atari  scene, specially  the 16/32 bit scene  that doesn't seem to
exist anymore.
Furthermore he steps into the ring with FelX of MJJ, without  getting answers to
his thoughts about some previous issues concerning  MJJ releases. This corner is
named "Atari Fight Club" and  thought to discuss problems until the blood comes,
or did I get it wrong? :)

Other parts bringing  us informations about the polish scene, we get  some party
reports, so  from EIL 3, Quast  2oo3 and Assembly 2k3, Rafal Kawecky talks about
the PDF format and his plans for a PDF viewer, as well as he tells us the reason
for dropping  the Tales Of Tamar Atari  conversion. We can find a look back onto
the demise  of the Jaguar  and Andrew Whittaker  tells us the untold story about
the works on AvP.

Mikro and EarX giving a bunch of coding tips and there is more to discover but I
wont list it all up here. Anyway, the mag is very interesting, may use some hard
words here and there and might be hard to diggestible for the one or other but I
think Chosneck is an essential publication on the Falcon.

There are just a few drawbacks left, I wont count  the 14 Megs problem really to
them even though if it would be fine to see the mag running on a standard Falcon
and I still don't see  a point why it  shouldn't be possible, but a real problem
is the load, depack and text formatting  routine that is  still awfully slow, it
always takes  several seconds until we get  a new article  onto the  screen, the
same for getting back to the main menu. On some longer articles you have to wait
1o - 2o seconds  until you can  go on reading. If the  whole 14 megs  are used I
wonder why the mag cannot hold at least the menu including the music selector in
the memory all the time. ... a question only coders can anser...

Final words...

Leaving the technical  drawbacks aside, Chosneck 2 is a load, the Reservoir Gods
intro gives  us a glimpse of the things to  come by Damo, what a cool intro! The
design of the mag  itself is state  of the art and  the contents are interesting
and entertaining... esp. because of Grey's straight  ahead style and very unique
slang, sometimes I laughed my pants off! I still cross my fingers that this very
bright shining pearl  of Atari diskmag madness  will see the light of day on the
ST somewhen as  all who can't enjoy  the mag are missing some quite entertaining
stuff!

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