Review: Total Disaster #Amber

Written by Adok

date o'release: may'98
rar-packed size: 4,780,344 bytes
langs: polish
main editor: misha / defect ^ tatanka ^ nothing
url: http://www.meil.pw.edu.pl/~st1524/ftp/

this is a really huge diskmag! via ftp, this mag is spread in a >4 meg sized zip file, which itself contains four rar archives (3x 1.44 mb, the last one the rest). after uncompressing, the mag takes 16 mbytes of harddisk space. there is a simple reason for this size: total disaster is not just a diskmag, it's also a musicdisk and artdisk. issue amber contains eight tunes, 14 pictures from the included art gallery, and a 400-kbyte-big swapper adverts file. in comparison to that, the articles themselves amount only about 475 kbytes.

total disaster awaits us with an excellent interface with a smooth intro, a small-sized font and pictures in the articles. unfortunately, the mag itself turns out to be completely in polish. there is a scene section as well as two non-scene sections called publicus and hyde park. moreover, some poetry, partly in english, is hidden in the art section. among the scene articles you can find e.g. a report of the rush hours 98 party and an overview about polish scene irc channels.

the next issue, called black, is scheduled for september'98. it shall contain english articles, too, as a first attempt to get into the international area.

overall impression: great interface! but the size is too large in my opinion. it's almost impossible to download the mag via modem because the ftp-servers with total disaster aren't the most stable ones. get the mag via snailmail unless you have an internet account at your uni.

- adok^hugi