What is the Toxic Mag ?

First Era - The Dark Ages (issues 1 to 3)

Once upon a time there was a crew of Atari ST fans called TSB (The Storm Brothers). Some day, a member, Judge Dredd, met two other members, Docno and Iki. He showed them some issues of a weird English magazine, specialized in comics. Its name : "Toxic Magazine". The three friends appreciated its humoristic style and decided to create their own magazine in order to speak, among other things, about the Atari scene news.

The cover of the original "Toxic!" magazine

So, that's how the Toxic Mag appeared. In the beginning, it was a magazine on diskette (also known as "diskmag") and it proposed software tests and interviews, with a fun ambience of course.

The founder members :

• IKI : he coded the interface of the first issue and wrote some articles too. He left the TSB crew to devote himself to his second passion : the Japanese animation and mangas. He is the author of Kyodai Mahjongg and of the Namida site.
• Judge Dredd : the graphist of the magazine, also article collector. Since that time, he has created 3 different sites (site 1 - site 2 - site 3).
• Docno (a.k.a. Zine) : he joined the crew for the second issue. His aim was to collect and to make up articles.
• ZX : he is the coder of the interface for issues 2 and 3.

Second Era - The Middle Ages (issues 4 to 7)

The NLC (No Limit Coding) crew joined the crazy team. Little particularity : due to a hard disk crash, the 4th issue was released before the 3rd one. In the years 1993-1994, the Atari ST lost little by little its glory for the benefit of PCs. You can feel the effects of this phenomenon : lots of NLC and TSB members emigrated to new horizons.

The members of the new guild :

• No-Dachi : the coder of the interface from the 4th issue to the 8th one, in 68000 assembler.
• CTS : the mad NLC coder.
• Thyrex : the actual big boss of the Toxic Mag was testing demos here. It's natural, he collected them.
• Dr Kaya : in the beginning, he supervised the French version.

Third Era - The Revival (issues 8 to 11)

After TSB left the Toxic team, the interface was coded in GFA Basic in order to run on Falcon 030. A new NLC recruit, ST Survivor, showed he was a very efficient editor-in-chief. In 1995, the Typhoon crew came and took over from TSB members. The Beast replaced ST Survivor since the 11th issue.

The reformers :

• ST Survivor : thanks to his efforts, he succeeded in emerging the Toxic Mag from oblivion.
• The Beast and Senser : they participated to the recovery plan too. They were promoted as official collaborators in the 10th issue.
• Callista : the only girl who regularly wrote for the Toxic.
• Aardschock (a.k.a. Patapom) : the world famous coder from the Hemoroids crew.

Fourth Era - The Modern Times (issues 12 to18)

The diskmag still goes on. Thanks to the creation of a Web site and to the systematical conversion of each issue to HTML format, the Toxic Mag adapts itself to new ways of communication. Atari ST emulators for Mac and PC open new frontiers. Moreover, since the 17th issue, most of the articles are translated into english.

The new trend :

• QueST : he wrote a lot of articles. Sometimes he sent hundred of KBytes of text for only one issue!
• Lord Morgul : a PC user. He is the symbol of the success of Atari ST emulators.
• White Ninja : Toxic Mag's martyr (dixit ST Survivor).
• The crew Sector One : Dma Sc, Edo, Hello and more recently Exyl participate regularly to the magazine.

Fifth Era - The Postmodernism

The floppy disk magazine times are over. At the beginning of the 21st century, the Toxic Mag changes its name and its shape.
To be continued...