amiga-news.de - Advent Calendar: Door 5

05.Dec.2022

Advent Calendar: Door 5 - David Brunet
Our new Advent calendar week begins with the fifth door and David Brunet.
David Brunet is inextricably linked to his French AmigaOS and MorphOS magazine Obligement. The long history of this magazine starts in the mid-1990s: inspired by Christian, a friend at high school who owned an Amiga 1200, David switched from his Amiga 500 to this Amiga with hard disk and 68030 card.

Both were interested in word processing, graphics, etc. and exchanged documents created with Wordworth every week for fun. These documents were called "Obligement", a made-up word that came from one of their friends. This term, which basically means "obligatory", basically marked the birth of the magazine.

This gave rise to the idea of producing a printed Amiga magazine: the first issue left the "editorial office" on 1 January 1997. It was written with Wordworth 6 and the graphics were done with Personal Paint. It had 15 A4 pages, stapled by hand and all in colour, coming straight from Christian's printer.

As the circulation never exceeded 15 printed copies, David suggested that they discontinue the paper version (after six issues) and start a digital version produced with Scala. In the following years they then switched to Blitz Basic 2 or Blitz Basic 2 RTG and the AmigaGuide format. Obligement 37 (January/February 2003) was then the first issue in HTML.

From issue 51 onwards, the magazine exists as a direct online version. Due to time constraints, the magazine's articles were henceforth published directly on the Obligement page. The bimonthly issues were no longer produced, the magazine was from then on a purely online magazine. Instead of the traditional issues there is - and this is how we have known and reported on amiga-news.de for a very long time - a newsletter every two months to summarise new articles and updates.

Equipped with this rich history and wealth of experience, David shares a few tips on how to "successfully" run an Amiga project for such a long time. His contribution for the fifth door:

"There have been many Amiga volunteer projects in the past and some of them are still present, stronger than ever, like Obligement and Amiga-News.de. In this cold weather and with Christmas approaching, it is always comforting to see websites like these that do not let their readership down.

I have witnessed the end of almost all Amiga fanzines/magazines. Their demise has allowed me to increase my experience so that I don't do the same thing. There is no miracle formula to perpetuate a magazine in a voluntary activity. I can simply state these few points:

You should neither do too much (overwork is harmful)...
...nor do not do enough (you get used to doing nothing and in the end, you don't move forward).
You have to know how to surround yourself with a few reliable people.
You should not always do the same thing and vary the subjects/activities.
You have to be open to criticism while rejecting unconstructive negative judgments.
Don't forget that this is only a hobby.
Projects motivated only by money do not last in time, especially on the Amiga.

Believe in yourself and have a wonderful Advent and Christmas season!" (dr)

[News message: 05. Dec. 2022, 06:38] [Comments: 1 - 05. Dec. 2022, 09:37]
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