Alright, I got myself a couple of MSX-Contakt magazines and tried to read them... as some readers wrote, there's a lot of complaining in it that the scene is getting smaller, no hardware or software comes out, amount of readers is decreasing etc. And a lot of desperate attempts to try to change that.
But also, I get the impression that there was some productions from these clubs that may not have been preserved so far... Who can tell me if there's still anything left of:
- Kakisoft software productions (by Peter Nielsen), like MSX Window's and some applications like Uni-Text, WINDOW-OFFICE Datei/Text.
- Productions by GmbH (Hamburg MSX association) and/or MSX/SVI-Club, by people like Lasse Assebasse (Lars Aschenbach), Thorsten Lührig, Herbert Kloseck. I see products named "Infosat #1", Galactic Empire (even a part 2 was developed?), Kaiser, SDCMON, SRAMMON, GAMEGIRL demo
- The game B199 by B. Brandt.
- Productions by Jan Kimpflinger (a.k.a. GOLD-Soft Enterprises). I could only find the Hint-Hunt disks part 1 and 2, but apparently more have appeared (parts 3 and 4 have been mentioned). And there is apparently something like the Stoned Again series.
- Productions by Schippsoft (Peter Schippmann); I only found Mahjongg
I added a tiny bit of this to Generation-MSX... but can you German folks enlighten us on what this all is?
In older German MSX magazines I also saw many advertisements of "Van der Zalm" software.... are these preserved somewhere?
@hamlet any ideas?
From the magazines I know the names well, especially Van der Zalm was often represented with ads. Unfortunately, the trace is lost.
I still have truckloads of old copy here, but it takes a long vacation day to sift through them.
I am convinced that in the last active MSX days there was only a lot of good will and announcements; but little ready for the market. At that time, success still depended on sales, few programmed without financial interest. The many copy protections also prove this.
Funny, I know van der Zalm software from the Amstrad CPC back in the 80s. Looking this company up at CPCRulez shows 10 applications. They all seem to be productivity / office related. I vaguely remember that at that time I keyed in a listing from a magazine which a van der Zalm had written but I do not remember any details any more.