Brainstorm

In the first months of 1989, the two Swiss freinds, Majestic and Chester, decided to form a demo crew. They soon recruited other talented members and by May they released their first demo: Lazer Roll.

Later that year, they were joined by the entire group of Axxis, who had members in both Germany and Switzerland. This resulted in Brainstorm's first foreign section. They would later gain other foreign divisions in Denmark and Finland, neither of which ever released anything.

By October 1989, they released their big and promising project: Zine. Zine wasn't the first diskmag ever to hit the scene, but it was by far the most user-friendly and revolutionary, which made the first issue an instant success.

The guys behind Zine had a lot of new ideas. While most were great, others were a bit more controversy. In Zine #09, it was announced that Brainstorm was joined by a female member; Patsy - Something almost unheard of in the scene at the time. Patsy contributed to several articles in Zine, and even became the girlfriend of Axel. Of course, later it all proved to be fake.

Brainstorm kept evolving Zine and in the later issues, they managed to make several scene-superstars contribute. For instance, this included graphics by Uno and Mithrandir, music by Omega and Dr. Awesome and even new code by Chaos. Brainstorm would carry on releasing 11 issues before the magazine was finally put to rest.

Sometime early/mid 1993, Brainstorm died. An internal dispute between Axel and co-founder Chester led to the final breakup. Axel, Tin and Rob Rose soon took use of the name Brainstorm though, and formed Brainstorm Productions. They claimed the group had nothing to do with the old Brainstorm nor Zine. In Musicland 2, they were even complaining about people constantly asking them about Zine. What were they thinking?!? When you choose to benefit of a well-known name, it comes at a price ;)

Sources:
- Various productions by Brainstorm & Brainstorm Productions
- Numerous Amiga diskmagazines
- Amiga Scenery by Glenn Lunder