MCCW 93 - Final issue | MSX Resource Center

Manuel Bilderbeek, editor-in-chief of MSX Computer & Club Webmagazine, has just published the 93rd and final issue of MCCW. It has been more than 4 years since the release of MCCW 92. Although the project died in the year 2000 there were still several (mostly unfinished) articles that were lying around unpublished. The MCCW project deserved a worthy (and official) ending in which, as initially promised, all material ever written for MCCW was published. In February 2004 Manuel started working on the final issue of MCCW. Today, after a lot of hard work, MCCW 93 is finally there.

Most of the articles were written around 2000, so beware that they might be outdated. Some articles are not finished completely yet, but still put online. They might be updated at a later time, though. The complete story about the long silence and the rationale for ending MCCW can be found in the preface of the magazine.

Last but not least: some updates have been made on the layout of the magazine and especially the underlying framework. Also, all HTML is now W3C compliant, so it should render well in all browsers that support the W3C HTML 4.01 Transitional standard.

Relevant link: MCCW website

Comments (13)

By mars2000you

Enlighted (6451)

20-11-2004, 14:46

Manuel, I've just read the long preface. It was indeed much work, especially to maintain a professionnal level. MC(C)M and his Internet extension (MCCW) are a great part of the MSX story, especially for Europe. Made by pros and fans for fans ! One of the best example of the MSX spirit !
Let's hope that the MSX spirit can continue on another (media) forms, like this great site (MRC) or with another great projects (openMSX / blueMSX)

By Ivan

Ascended (9342)

20-11-2004, 16:27

We need a printed professional magazine in English about MSX.

The disappearance of MCCM and Hnostar left a big gap and the new "MSX Magazine" by ASCII is only in Japanese.

By flyguille

Prophet (3031)

20-11-2004, 17:15

what usefull is the article about rotation... i found that very useful for race-games up-view

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10096)

20-11-2004, 18:52

@ivan

Why would you want a printed -say: monthly- magazine, when you can get all the news, including feedback from users, from the internet?

A low quantity of magazines means they're expensive.. they're prolly in black/white with *perhaps* a color-cover. Further more, from a magazine the reader more or less expects a solid number of pages and a healthy continuity, who's going to fill them pages? There's msx-news almost daily here, most are small newsposts of only some 5 lines orso (just look twice and notice how much space the MRC-newspost framework consumes ), I don't see all those combined newsposts filling say 30 double-sided a4 papers each month (so, 60 pages, which was ~ the amount MCCM had in the last few issues).

Does that mean I'm against a paper-magazine? Ofcourse not, but I'll try to be realistic. I prefer a good website rather than a monthly $5 magazine made out of 20 a5 papers, in black/white, no colors, outdated news, no user-feedback, and in the worst-case-scenario: a creative drop after issue 4 which will lead to re-reviewing old stoneage games, and 'new courses' explaining the PRINT commando. "been there, done that"

I've written for MCCM, MCCW and ROM, I know the drill, and I've seen what happened to all kinda (disk-)magazines just before the silent years started..

By Ivan

Ascended (9342)

20-11-2004, 19:39

Why would you want a printed -say: monthly- magazine, when you can get all the news, including feedback from users, from the internet?

Simply because in the Internet the information is highly volatile.
Tomorrow a web that contains valuable information could no longer exist.
And, of course, I was not thinking in a monthly (!) magazine.

I don't know ANYBODY who prefers reading from a screen that from paper. In fact I usually print PDFs (or any type of document) that I could read directly from screen.

There's msx-news almost daily here, most are small newsposts of only some 5 lines orso (just look twice and notice how much space the MRC-newspost framework consumes ), I don't see all those combined newsposts filling say 30 double-sided a4 papers each month (so, 60 pages, which was ~ the amount MCCM had in the last few issues).

Exactly. That's another problem. How much time has passed since a long article about new software/hardware or programming appeared? Some developers are trying to sell new soft that no one reviews in depth...

Does that mean I'm against a paper-magazine? Ofcourse not, but I'll try to be realistic. I prefer a good website rather than a monthly $5 magazine made out of 20 a5 papers, in black/white, no colors, outdated news, no user-feedback, and in the worst-case-scenario: a creative drop after issue 4 which will lead to re-reviewing old stoneage games, and 'new courses' explaining the PRINT commando. "been there, done that"

A magazine presents the information in a better structured way. For instance, try to find the articles or download the software that appears in the latest issue of "MSX Magazine" by ASCII. Be prepared for a long day of googling...

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10096)

20-11-2004, 19:56

Oh sure, a papermag has its advantages,.. but at a price... that's the whole point. If you want quality, then the price will be high..

By Henk

Expert (107)

21-11-2004, 00:26

In the old days there where those listings like Jake, Hall etc.. I loved them, spend hours to get them in my MSX. But now everything can be downloaded. The number of new hardware is also to small to fill a magzine, maybe even a year-based one.
Another idea is to get a section inside a PC magazine one or two pages. Which can be filled with MSX info. This way the big crowd reads about it not only the MSX fans, resulting in new people who are curious about the MSX system.

By iamweasel2

Paladin (709)

21-11-2004, 05:03

Well, a monthly printed magazine is difficult to happen, but MCCW could have go on, if people wanted. I read Manuel's preface, and I agree it was too much work for him and Maarten to do alone. Although we have great people developing MSX hardware and software, few of them are willing to just write an article telling how it was made, the challenges they faced, etc. I always thought MCCW was cool and should go on, so I wrote an article to it, it was great to read it again (it is really poorly written, since it was a preliminary version. I plan to fix it and submit an update version). I never had wrote an article before, but I thought that, If I wanted MCCW to continue, I had to help it. I tried at that time to convince some of my brazilian MSX friends to write about their work with MSX. None of them seemed to care. Anyway, I believe we must share the knowledge if we want MSX to continue, and that can only be achieved if we, besides doing MSX software and hardware, write articles about what we did, so other people can learn from it and use that knowledge in their own work. When people decide that they will do it, then we can have another MSX magazine.

By SaebaMSX

Hero (533)

21-11-2004, 21:02

As I am an active member writing paper magazines I can confirm that they are expensive to do as wolf said.

But I really want a Spanish MSX Magazine in paper. I think that it is needed and reading news in internet is not the same. As hnostar stopped and SD Mesxes, Moai did the same, we had to move. And it is not easy, it is not cheap, it needs time and efforts... but it is great too. Even if we can't give the hnostar quality (because we can't afford it knowing the number of sells we will have) it is nice to try to improve with each number.

And we also try not to write about news on the internet, but just we try to create these news (or contact developers or people who wants to contribute with us).That is great and that should not stop.

I am sorry, but since MSX lives, MSX had paper magazines. So I still want them, it is simple. And I really feel like the next number we will be the best one (the fourth) because we still must improve and correct mistakes.

So let's give a try to paper magazines! Let's contribute with them!

PS: Anyone wants to help us?

By konamiman

Paragon (1194)

21-11-2004, 22:31

Wow... I didn't remember that I had wrote an article for this issue!! XD

By snout

Ascended (15187)

22-11-2004, 01:26

I think Call MSX is a great initiative and although I have not seen a copy of the magazine yet (I will receive some relatively soon, I hope), I'm very excited about this project. Knowing a few of the people who are working on it I expect the quality, the amount of content and the amount of readers will increase gradually. To find more people, perhaps you could post an announcement on our (Spanish) forums? You never know...

By SaebaMSX

Hero (533)

28-11-2004, 13:06

If konamiman says so our sales will be down!!

And it just claimed to be a Nestorfree magazine... snif...

By Manuel

Ascended (19332)