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Technology

Classic Computer Magazine Archive 246

Posted by chrisd from the days-gone-by dept.
savetz writes "I think /. readers will find this of interest: the Classic Computer Magazine Archive serves up the full text from old compter mags: three years of Creative Computing plus every issue of Antic, STart, and Hi-Res. There's also a bit of text from Compute! and Compute!'s Gazette. Everything is there with permission from the publishers."
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Classic Computer Magazine Archive More

Classic Computer Magazine Archive

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  • Cross Roads - For Real (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Flamesplash ( 469287 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @09:21PM (#4647333) Homepage Journal
    Now I can finally type in the hex code for CrossRoads all over again. It was only 10 or so pages full of hex codes, should be fun.

    Man that game was great.
    • Are you thinking of the C-64 crossroads, where you had the little guy that you went around a maze with and shot up different colored monsters?

      Man, I was the king of that game... once I found a bug and somehow warped up like 500 levels and had this insane score.. but then my Dad jerked the power and I lost it :(

    • I used to, when I was pretty young, subscribe to 3-2-1 Contact. Every once in a while they would have 2-4 pages of BASIC code. Usually some goofy text game of some sort. Better than hex code, though...

    • Re:Cross Roads - For Real (Score:4, Funny)

      by whereiswaldo ( 459052 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @11:35PM (#4648158) Journal
      I remember my sister and I working to get a game going on the C64. She read the hex numbers, I typed (over 10 pp). Now that I think about it, that was pretty cool of her. :)
    • Now I can finally type in the hex code for CrossRoads all over again.

      Why type it? If they're providing text, just put it on something your computer can read and read it in. If they're doing scanned images, OCR them...then put it on something your computer can read and read it in.

      They seem to be /.'d pretty thoroughly at the moment, or I'd check and see if Nibble is in their collection. If it is, it could potentially save me lots of work (every issue from 1984 to when publication ceased in 1992), as I'm trying to OCR the whole pile of magazines and archive them on CD-ROM (while verifying that the programs are scanned in accurately so they'll run).

    • Man, I was a pretty pathetic kid back in the Creative Computing/Compute!/Family Computing/Nibble days. Being that I couldn't afford to buy the magazines, I would ride my bike 4 miles to the supermarket, and plant my ass in front of the magazine rack, copying the BASIC source code by hand , with a pen and paper, straight out of the magazines. Then I'd come home or go to school and type them into the Apple II+/IIe's, C64/VIC-20's and IBM PC-jr's. Whatta dork, eh?

      There was also an Apple focused magazine, whose name escapes me, that printed thier BASIC sourcecode in every issue using some wierd, scannable black and white "strip", which would save you the effort of manually typing in the programs. Of course, you had to buy the paper-strip scanner, which was around $100 IIRC. Cute idea though. Definitely way ahead of its time.

      • I think the apple magazine your thinking of was "Nibble". It was an apple ][+ //e programming magazine. Lots of basic and some hex code.

        I don't remeber the bar codes though, I remeber they sold the programs in the magazine on floppy if you didn't want to type them in.
        • the 2D bar codes showed up in later volumes of Nibble and were placed towards the back of the magazine or the end of the article. They were a nifty idea, but like others i'm sure, I couldn't afford the reader. I relied on the line by line checksums at the end of each article to help me track down typos. Especially useful for some of those assembly programs.

  • How to get permission from Creative Computing? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AdamBa ( 64128 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @09:22PM (#4647338) Homepage
    I am wondering who "owns" Creative Computing now, that they got permission from. The reason is because of the books that CC published, Basic Computer Games, and More Basic Computer Games, I think some of those games would be interesting to update to modern BASIC, convert to other languages, etc.

    - adam

  • sweet! you might also like... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by updog ( 608318 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @09:23PM (#4647346) Homepage
    another popular computer related magazine from the past, atari age [tripoint.org].

  • Makes we want to cry... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by benbean ( 8595 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @09:24PM (#4647354)
    Ah yes, when computer magazines weren't 90% ads, and contained genuinely useful and interesting, intelligtently written articles covering a myriad of topics both popular and obscure.

    Where did you go? :-(

    • Creative Computing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Angry Toad ( 314562 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @09:31PM (#4647400)

      I heard that. Creative Computing was the magazine that got me really excited about computers. The collection of stuff was always eclectic, humorous, informative, and driven by a passion to communicate the excitement of the new world that was opening up. Younger people should be rightly suspicious when old coots start prattling about how much better things were in the day, but I'm here to bear witness that every now and then things really were better, and Creative Computing was one of those things.

    • Re:Makes we want to cry... (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah, but the only reason the magazines weren't 90% ads was because they were 70% giant hex tables giving object code listings for you to type in. I think the greatest thing the Internet has done for software is that I didn't have to enter the latest MS service pack one nybble at a time.

    • Re:Makes we want to cry... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Ah yes, when computer magazines weren't 90% ads,

      Put down the crack pipe! Either they were chock full of ads, or they tried to get most of their revenue from high subscription costs and/or cheap writers. The age of ad-funded magazines was a good one.

      Remember when Computer Shopper had great articles, was about 1" thick and cost $2.95? Now it's paper thin, issue price is up to $4.99, there are NO articles worth reading anymore, and no decent ads. I didn't care that half the ads were for porn or "adult" services, it was an easy stream of revenue that kept the quality relatively high at the time. Now it's all crap. The same goes for most other magazines that have been around and/or absorbed by the Ziff-Davis-kiss-o-blandness-empire.

      I say bring back the good ole' days!
      • Well, you are confusing two eras here -- the golden age of Computer Shopper (early '90s) with the golden age of Creative Computing (early '80s). And as someone who remembers both eras, I can assure you that Creative Computing did have fewer ads and more content than Computer Shopper. Then again, nobody I knew (including me) actually read any of the so-called "articles" in Computer Shopper -- we just bought it to find the lowest price for RAM and hard drives in the dark ages before the Web.

        Now, Creative Computing, well, think of Dr. Dobbs Journal with more of sense of wonder and less "learn this new technology and maybe you won't lose your job at the next rightsizing" attitude
        • Computer Shopper had *great* content in their black-and-white tech section, the part that more-or-less started with "The Hard Edge". Readers of that material could regularly depend on articles detailing changes in CPU architecture, memory technology, optical storage etc.

          Kind of like what Tom's Hardware and anandtech do, only good.

          The shopper was my guide to life while I was in high school. I managed to build enough decent PCs to afford a dual 486DX/2 machine when I went off to college, mostly financed through the fact that I could *always* find parts a few bucks cheaper if I just dug deep enough into the ads.
    • What about highly insightful periodicals such as Wired?

      --Joey

  • I like the old stuff... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by acehole ( 174372 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @09:31PM (#4647399) Homepage
    My father actually has a lot of 'OMNI' and 'OMEGA' science magazines, i'm not sure if you guys had them in the states but in Australia they were popular science magazines in the early 80's. It's good to read through theories that either still stand today or have been proven right or wrong.

    I read through the reviews of the 'latest' technology the time had to offer, it's quite an interesting read. As well as classic computer ads such as the house that burnt down and the Apple IIe was the only things besides the cat that survived.

    Did you know that sega's first consoles had tape decks? The magazines are quite old. I'll scan them one day.
    • Jaysus H Christ on a digital crutch.

      Talk about dredge up a memory! There was a pic of the Apple // case melted and all and it was working!

      Damn I feeling pretty young and chipper til you reminded of that.

      We used to use that as evidence that the Apple was superior.

      That was before Apple Users claimed that Apple *invented* Unix, windowing, and the mouse.

      Puto

  • server == Apple ][+ (Score:4, Funny)

    by mashie ( 267665 ) <jamesfgreer2@ySTRAWahoo.com minus berry> on Monday November 11, 2002 @09:32PM (#4647413) Homepage

    Seems to have been slashdotted into submission. They should have gone with a ][e.

  • A little known secret (Score:3, Funny)

    by Adam9 ( 93947 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @09:33PM (#4647421) Journal
    Interesting idea.. but I know of a way that you can see decades of archived magazines and newspapers! Did you know that these places usually let you see movies for free without the MPAA breathing down their necks? I know I should've posted AC because the secret is out. But go here [libdex.com] to see what I mean.
    • Good idea, unless you live in a large metropolis, which, like most urban metropolises, is constantly lurching from financial crisis to financial crisis. County libraries in very well-off places are quite nice though.

  • Electronic Games Magazine - The Greatest (Score:3, Interesting)

    by loomis ( 141922 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @09:34PM (#4647424)
    Oh what I wouldn't give for every issue of Electronic Games Magazine. The publication was the magazine to read from 1981-85. It offered reviews, strategy guides, and more, for arcade and home games in the golden age of video gaming. Here [vg-network.com] is a Website with all of the magazines covers, and blurbs about each issue. Today, issues of Electronic Games are coveted, and fetch a pretty decent penny on Ebay. Loomis

  • This is important stuff! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PotatoHead ( 12771 ) <doug.opengeek@org> on Monday November 11, 2002 @09:34PM (#4647427) Homepage Journal
    When I was young, I read every one of these publications. Learned more than I could use at the time.

    Today, it is not so important to know that poke 710,0 would turn the screen background black on an Atari. Their time has passed for the most part and we could all focus our energy elsewhere today.

    It is important to remember the spirit of the times though. Hacking around the guts of your machine was encouraged and reported on! New techiques covered every aspect of these machines as people used them in almost every way, but the way they were designed for!

    What the Fu*k happened? People who only smell money and have no regard for others is what happened! We should be ashamed for letting them.

    One interesting thing was the included source code and programming techniques. Compute used to publish games and utilities written for all the major machines at the time! Never thought about it much as a kid, just thought it was cool.

    Fast forward today and what is that exactly? Open source! Not only that, but in popular publications where EVERYONE COULD SEE!

    A lot could be done with this code and it made each issue worth its purchase price.

    Open source preserves this spirit with todays hardware. Instead of text editors, assemblers, sprite editors we get Office Suites, C Compiliers, and OpenGL modelers.

    Seriously, the technology to meet everyones basic computing needs is already done! Nobody should have to keep paying and paying for it.

    Thanks for a nice reminder of exactly why I choose to use Open Tools! Somehow we need to get more people in the know. Once they do, they will never go back. Just as none of us who actually read these things did!

    • What the Fu*k happened?

      The vast majority of people found easier ways of enjoying their computers more. Most people are a long way short of even understanding programming, let alone enjoying it. Printed program listings were tedious, cover tapes then disks, CD's and finally websites were a godsend.

      Dave
      • The vast majority of people found easier ways of enjoying their computers more.
        They didn't "find" these ways though; they were developed as technology progressed. Once BBS systems became popular, it was easier to trade program listings via boards because only one person had to type them in to begin with. Once diskette drives were standard on most machines, magazines shipped cover disks or had magazine-on-disk publications like Softdisk or Big Blue Disk.

        My point is, I doubt people were hand-entering code because that act in and of itself brought them some sort of perverse joy. At the time, hand-entering listings was simply what it took to get the code on their system so they could play with it.

      • Re:This is important stuff! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by PotatoHead ( 12771 ) <doug.opengeek@org> on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @01:24AM (#4648743) Homepage Journal
        I agree with this only because most of us do not relate to the computer in the way made popular by these old publications, but I think you miss the point.

        Websites, CD's and other media can bring new computer experiences and communication to us, but without anyone evangalizing (sp!) the actual art of computing, our industry will grow stale --a large portion of it has!

        Most of us don't care how the computer works, but that small percent that does is what makes the difference.

        This is why things like Linux *need* to be avaliable for people to understand and create with. This could be *Bsd, Hurd or anything else that is free as in freedom as long as it is open to those who want to look.

        This is also why hacking is *not* a bad thing in and of itself. We paid for the stuff, we should be able to do what we want with it. I could as a kid, nothing should have changed.

        Without these two things in place, our 'new' creations will simply be those things that are planned and accounted for. In this context, are they really creations, or just natural selection of the controlled set of possibilities?

        The difference is more than you think.

        When I was in high school, I was connecting my computer to other things and making them go. Nobody told me computers were bad. Nobody told me it could not be done. Nobody told me that I could be breaking the law by simply learning and sharing with others the results!

        When I asked the question, and gave the answer, I really meant this:

        Those who built their empires today fear for their future. They were the kids typing in the codes, learning new things and in a position to take advantage of it.

        Now they use their position not to further the industry, but to secure their position in it AT THE EXPENSE OF THE REST OF US. This is wrong at its most basic level and a lot of people here know it.

        Problem is that most everyone else doesn't!

        That is what the fu*k happened!

        Now it is not all bad, we all have machines, they are cheap and connected. Good, but getting stale. It's time for the next round.

        Somewhere in a small town high school, a group of kids might be computing on whatever they can find. It is likely they are using Linux and learning more together then they could ever learn alone.

        Good for them and good for us.

        Hope they see a coupla issues of Compute! or Byte! and know that they are doing the right thing.

        If they can get the same encouragement and freedom we all did, then perhaps we just might get the benefit, just as our elders did.

  • Analog? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by shlong ( 121504 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @09:35PM (#4647431) Homepage
    Antic was crap compared to Analog. Analog always published cool programs and insightful articles, while Antic wanted to be the PC Magazine of Atari. It's a shame that medocrity is remembered so well.

    • Re:Analog? (Score:3, Informative)

      by savetz ( 201597 )
      Then check out the A.N.A.L.O.G. Preservation Project [earthlink.net].

      • Re:Analog? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by skeedlelee ( 610319 )
        Rockin'

        Bringin' up all sorts of memories. Thanks for the ANALOG link, with the site being /.'d and me in the mood for nostalgia I was a bit limited.

        Begin nostalgic ramble...

        Grew up on Ataris. First had an 8-bit (Atari64 if I recall), then graduated to an ST when I went to high school. I wrote many many papers on that thing (the ST, the Atari64 had a word processor, but man was that a clunky interface). The Degas painter program was a great distraction. My dad was a musician/hobbiest and he had a Roland MT-32 (the original) and a MIDI keyboard, the Atari's had the MIDI thing down pat. Had (I think) a 16 track MIDI recording system at home. Really fun, even for someone (like me) who didn't have a clue about music. Also, some games (like Pirates) supported the MIDI format and damn they sounded good :)

        Had a bit of programing experience on both. I remember learning some BASIC on the 8-bit. My forays were pretty limited though. I figured out POKE and PEEK and GOTO but for some reason, never really got the idea of why subroutines were useful. Even so, the player missle graphics business was cool, a trivial amount of work and even an eight year old could figure out how to get character A to shoot at character B and to get some interaction with the joystick. Can't remember any of my programming since then being so easy or fun. Beat the pants off of programming in VB or later in UNIX, though those were always for work not play so I guess it's not a fair comparison.

        The ST was really cool for what you could do with sounds and programming. The ability to just pick a wave form, a frequency and a few other parameters was really cool. To get a neat little beat going took a one line command. Wish those things had had more of a chance to evolve. The furthest along I ever saw one was (years later) some sort of laptop (with a woman's name if I recall - Alice?) that these guys brought to my highschool to make some sort of pitch for a sound media training school. One guy prattled on for a while. In the mean time the other ripped bits off of half a dozen CD's and mixed them into a song, in about 25 minutes. Keep in mind Intel 386DX's were a big deal then, CD roms were a new idea for PC's. The end result was technically impressive though I disagreed with his music tastes :)

        Still remember the EA slot car simulator, that was a cool game. To be honest I'm not sure which computer it was on, I think the 8-bit, but I'm not sure. I remember it being on a 5.25" disk so it was probably the 8-bit. Did a Google search for it... Racing Destruction Set. That's it... Yeah! The only link I can find for it though is being slashdoted (www.atarimagazines.com)... Yeah for google caches. Really, I can't think of any other racing game before or since that allowed you to build your own tracks (sooo trivially) and to customize aspects of the track such as ramps, friction and GRAVITY. And mines too! How cool was that. Placed right and a slow moving vehicle would just bounce up and down getting progressively more damaged.

        Someone made this point in another post, but I have to agree... Open source is the closest thing we've got to the spirit of what these old programing magazines were. Face it, any time a publisher could print out the code and people would enter programs manually, that's beyond tweaking someone else's program... It's high time all OS's shipped with programming languages again. I'm not a Mac user but it sounds like Macs have been doing this for a while (is Carbon/Cocoa in the default install?). If so, good for them! Am I crazy or has Microsoft dropped even the lameass QBasic from their default install (as of like years ago).

        Okay that's enough....
  • I remember reading the C-64 version of Compute! Gazette when i was younger, and trying to copy down the code down to the letter.

    To note, they had some custom assembler program (I believe it was called MLX) that was written in BASIC. Basically, you would have to spit out some lines of Hex Codes for each Memory segment to load, or something. The interesting thing was that if you mistyped the code in teh magazine, it would give an annoying buzz, telling you it was bad.

    The reason I'm ranting about this...I remember typing a SHITLOAD of this code one time and the power went out before I saved any of it, and the original C64 keyboards weren't all the ergonomic to begin with...i learned to save my work much more often after that ;)

    Sigh, the memories :">

  • Does this mean... (Score:5, Funny)

    by bafu ( 580052 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @09:36PM (#4647444)
    ...that my wife will now make me throw out all of my original copies? :-O

  • Enter Magazine (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Now this is the magazine I want to see in the archives.

    I remember it from growing up; published by CTW (the same people who do Sesame Street and did 3-2-1 Contact!". Cool magazine for kids; I still have the issue where they discussed all that was wrong with "Wargames: The movie".

    Each edition had sample code (BASIC or Assembler) in the back of each issue you could type in and run. Oh, and the classic ads for Popeye, Q-bert, and Lode Runner. Ah, those were the days....

    (A.C., who grew up on TI-Basic and a 99/4A)

  • I notice that they don't really include the old Byte magazines. Well, I suppose there's a good reason for that: hard drives aren't big enough yet for the "telephone book" editions. :)

    • The problem with "Byte" magazine back then is that it was 99% ads. Even moreso than Computer Shopper, but that was because you were lookin' for prices. Byte? Couldn't find the articles.

      • The REALLY old Byte from circa 1976 and the next six years was the really good stuff - hardware projects, language design, heavy programming including assembler.

        It's what got me (starting at age 12) into all aspects of computers: theory, hardware, firmware, communications, and software.

        So sad that it became just another PC Magazine + Computer Shopper. bleah! :(

        • ob '02 flamebait (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Thud457 ( 234763 )
          Surely the issues from 1985 and earlier should be public domain ? We just need a set of copies and a bunch of people to scan them in!

          On a different note, this applies to the topic as a whole. "Creative Computing" inherited that whole DIY attitude from the hippy days and things like the "Whole Earth Catalog". That whole, go ahead, give it a try, figure out how to do things yourself schtick. The whole early PC industry was hobbiest driven. Hell, that hippy Woz was giving away schematics to build your own Apple! (Of course, back in those halcyon days, all electronic devices came with a manual and a schematic so an electronics tech could repair them.)

          Things certainly have changed. There's sure a lot more money floating around now, and a lot of people who don't "get it". But we still have open source and lots of wackos hacking up electronic stuff on the web, so it's not a total loss.
    • http://www.byte.com/art/

      You can read a few online. I think the other ones were offered on CDROM a while back
    • The cover story was "Why PC's Crash, and Mainframes Don't". Still as true today as it was 8 years ago.

  • How I learned (Score:2, Interesting)

    by kaoshin ( 110328 )
    When my parents went grocery shopping I used to always get them to buy me one of those gazette mags. At that time I didn't understood what the code did, but they had that checksum program to make sure you typed it in right (usually).

    There was this one game I remember that was like an RPG that was several pages long. It took forever to type it all in by chicken peck typing. When I was done I ran the checksum and it passed so I saved it all to cassette tape which ended up messing it up and the whole thing got screwed and I think that was the first time I really lost it.

    There was also one program I also remember in an october issue (I think) that made this face animate into a werewolf face. When I got it running I stuck the monitor in my window for halloween.

    The rest of the 80's I think I spent playing flight sims and reading the choose your own adventure type books.

  • Anyone remember Nibble ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tmark ( 230091 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @10:11PM (#4647634)
    Or was it Nybble ? This was an Apple II magazine that contained the complete source code for tons of cool, sometimes-commercial-level programs. Half the time the code was in BASIC, the other half of the time the code was in 6502 assembler. If you want to go blind, try entering 10-20 pages or more of straight-up hexadecimal. Ahh, the days
  • This was the greatest of all Commodore-related magazines; it had THE most technical articles and code (most of it assembly, or the insane read-data equivalent). Those guys totally maxed out the C64, the C128 and the Amigas, doing unbelievable stuff - I still remember writing my own beginning assembly, and sticking the code into that strange "protected" memory area, and then typing 'sys 49152' to execute...

    Ah, memories...

  • Google Cache (Score:4, Informative)

    by manly_15 ( 447559 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @10:17PM (#4647674)
    All sites on atarimagazines.com with atari in the text. [google.com] Just remember to click on the "cached" link!

  • ZZap64 (Score:2)

    by crush ( 19364 )
    Hmmm. The site seems to be /.ed at the moment, so there's no way for me to tell if they include archives of the British C64 gaming mag ZZap64, which was a cut above the rest, so here's a link to ZZap64 [zzap64.com]
  • I loved Compute! Damn I miss my old commodore!

  • Computer Language Magazine (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gaj ( 1933 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @10:24PM (#4647718) Homepage Journal
    What I would love to see is an archive of _Computer_Language_Magazine_. Good stuff! I used to have several dozen article clippings, but over time they've all bitten the dust.

    Old Byte mags (back when Ciarcia was writing for them) would rock, as well.

    Hell, even old DDJ, back before it became the watered down dross it is today. It's still about the best left, but only because it doesn't really have competition, IMHO.

  • Gawd, I loved those magazines. Antic was terrific...I lovingly dwelled over each one. And then I got a big score, when I inherited my Uncle's C=64, I got like 5 years of Compute's Gazette...WITH DISKS! So I didn't have to type in all those programs (though I put in my share of type in.)

    Anyway, one of the best unknown games for the C=64 came from that magazine...Crossroads! (and its sequal) It was so cool, using character graphics with pixelated explosions to put hundreds of monsters on screen, each with their own allies and enemies among the other monsters. I wrote a review of both games that's at [classicgaming.com] ... check 'em out, they're both great.
  • Doesn't anyone remember Electronic Fun with Computers and Games? There was a classic magazine!

  • Mapping the Atari (Score:4, Interesting)

    by antizeus ( 47491 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @10:41PM (#4647825)
    Looks like the site has been knocked out of action, so I can't see if it's there, but it would be really cool if they released some of the books that were associated with some of the magazines. My favorite was "Mapping the Atari" which had gory in-depth details on just about every interesting memory location in the Atari 8-bit line of computers (there was a 400/800 edition and a later XL/XE edition). This book made me feel connected to my Atari computers that I have never been able to duplicate with any subsequent platform.

    I think I have copies of both editions buried in my mother's basement, but it would be nice for it to be available on the web, if for no other reason than nostalgia.

    • Yes, I regret throwing away my copy of that book. It was my constant companion during the Atari years. The best way to get it online would be to get out those copies from your mom's basement and put them online yourself. I'm certain it would be very popular on the Atari Emulator sites.

      Gosh, I've lost so much of my Atari programming stuff it's sickening. Some of the best programming I ever did was using 6502 Assembler on the old Atari 400.
    • Mapping The Atari is available online:

      Check it out, [atariarchives.org] once the slashdotting has died down...

  • I recently picked up a copy of CPU (Computer Power User) at the airport having done lots of recent travel and exhausting my normal magazines.

    I was impressed. It was a balanced mag between hardware, software, Linux, Windows, and OSX.

  • They're high on nostalgia, and host the website of an Atari 130-XE [old-computers.com]... it just takes some time to get the pages... ;)
  • The site is totally SlashDotted, so I can't check, but does this site have any old SoftSide magazines posted? That was my personal favorite, especially the nifty games written by Sheldon Leemon.

  • Proof! (Score:3, Funny)

    by gadgetboy1 ( 228794 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @11:18PM (#4648052)
    Cool - now I can prove I really am a published author without having to bringing in my mint-condition May 1986 copy of Antic from its protective encasing at home :-). http://www.atarimagazines.com/v5n1/derejoystick.ht ml [atarimagazines.com]
  • Wow, I remember Creative Computing. Was a GEM of a magazine. Heck I still have about 5 years of issues still in my parents attic.

    Creative Computing and David H. Ahl got me started in computing. I remember in the late 70's Reading the magazine, typing in the basic (that didn't work right out of the magazine on a TRaSh-80) and having the time of my life making the stuff work.

    The Ahl benchmarks were my favorite. I'd type them into everthing and submit the results religiously. My highpoint was when David Ahl sent me a letter thanking me for my contributions. A few years later a bad review of the PCjr killed Creative Computing and David joined one of the Atari Rags.

    I made the trip to an Atari show in DC to meet him and loved listening to him. Heck my Atari ST's, portfolio's, 800's, XL's and Stacy were great toys of there era, but it really disappointed me to see my past hero, whoring for a single vendor rag.

    Its really sad to hear of David as an insurance sales man. Heck he started me rolling on the Computer path, and now he's off it.

    At least these sites bring up memories. Now I guess its time to go dig up my old Atari's and see if they work. Then revisit some of the programs in these journals.

  • When I get a hankerin' for some of that "back in the day" goodness, I find a handheld game, like Yahtzee or Battleship, for example (they help provide instant ideas and present a palatable project duration), and then sit down at my Atari 130XE and create my own version over a weekend, sometimes in a single sitting.

    In an ancient world devoid of the need for multi-threading, exception handling, and lengthy design documentation, it's amazing how fast the assembly language flows from your fingertips.

    It's quite a refreshing diversion, and allows me to recapture those carefree days.

  • Magazines I DON'T miss (Score:4, Funny)

    by rot26 ( 240034 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @12:26AM (#4648456) Homepage Journal
    PC Tech Journal and goddam Will Fastie. The biggest idiot to ever have anything to do with a computer magazine, with the possible exception of Jerry (Plugola) Pournelle.
  • for the Color Computer would be perfect for something like that. However, I understand the publisher (Lonnie Falk) has withheld permission for similar efforts out of greed (which is technically his right).

    Apparently the magazines don't have enough market value to be successfully sold, but have enough that the publisher that has already made his money isn't willing to give back to the community because he sees $$$ signs.

    C'est la vie--I've got my paper ones.

  • A debt of gratitude (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Pr3d4t0r ( 604257 ) <casey AT somegeekintn DOT com> on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @01:23AM (#4648738) Homepage
    If not for Creative Computing, Compute!, and books such as More Basic Computer Games I'd be pumping gas somewhere... hmm perhaps this reference should be retired. Anyway, I learned to code with my old Atari (do not bump the table while saving to tape!) 400 and these publications, and I'm lucky enough to get paid to code today.

    I still have some copies of Compute from 1981 laying around here somewhere. They make for intersting reading especially with adverts such as:
    48k memory upgrade board only $149

    Ah, the good ole days.

  • I've been searching for this article, hoping that somewhere, someone had reprinted it. When this first article came out, I printed the maxims and put them on the wall next to my ST. After years of experience, I've leared that maxim 10 is wrong for my work; however, most of the sagely advice still applies today. Brief synopsis of David Small's voodoo computing:

    1. When you're having a bad day, stop working.
    2. Comment your code to death.
    3. "Programming is an art best learned by apprenticing to a master. Or "Steal from the best." (Quote attributed to Russell Smith.)
    4. Use the best tools, and be willing to pay for them as necessary. Your time is valuable, and it is a pleasure to use good tools.
    5. Keep a copy of everything you do-disks and printouts. Put it somewhere, file it away but keep it. You will always come back to it.
    6. Backup your backups. Keep three of everything.
    7. Frame this; hang it over your desk: Don't be clever.
    8. If it works, don't fix it.
    9. Always give your code the maximum chance to work. Or: It'll always think of something you don't.
    10. Structured programming is useless in the real world. You don't need to program in a structured way. Give yourself some credit. You're neither a moron nor a menace to society. Don't use a language that forces structure on you.

  • creative computing reminiscences (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cancerward ( 103910 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @02:37AM (#4649059) Journal
    I'm still (only) 26 but my school [qld.edu.au] library had a full collection, and my university [uq.edu.au] has them on microfiche. CC was the greatest computing magazine ever, better than DDJ. They had a focus on algorithms, programming contests, and were very humorous. Apart from the "Basic Computer Programs" listings, Creative Computing Press also published "Computers in mathematics: a sourcebook of ideas" (1979) which must have had a big effect on me.

    What are some of my fond memories?

    • The April 1980 April Fool's Day issue. The title of the issue was a take-off of DDJ's original title. You could turn it over and have another take-off magazine. It had the TRASH-80, "2000 hours later I still own a Lemon", ADVENTURE in Fortran printed in microscopic type, take-offs of the Appel/Haken 4-colour theorem proof, make your own barcode reader spoof, and parodies of many other magazines.
    • The "Inside Dreck" column by "John Qwerty" sometime in '84 or '85. These days a magazine would be sued for that, but Dvorak hasn't changed in all those years. It's not in the on-line archive, probably for legal reasons...
    • The first three months of the IBM Images column with Will Fastie - "Here is a picture of the author's personal computer" - for the first three months he couldn't get hold of one, so we had a picture of a bottle of wine, a basketball court, etc.
    • Endless source code listing with explanations, CREATIVE clever programming. Astronomy programs. Hunt the Wumpus listings, dodecahedra. "Chess C-4". Checkers programs. I know I sound like an old fogey but there's nothing like this now... which leads me to...
    • Dave Ahl's sad farewell, explaining the reasons for the closure of the magazine. Advertising revenue was down, leading to the magazine looking really anorexic at the end.
  • I used to read STart years ago, when I still used my Atari ST. It totally rocked back then! I'll be sure to check out that link later for some good ol' nostalgia :-)
  • Those of you in the UK might appreciate this nostalgia trip: Your Sinclair Rock 'n' Roll Years [ysrnry.co.uk].
  • Please tell I wasn't the only one that had a TRS-80 Color Computer and read Hot CoCo?

    Man, I did love my 8-bit Atari's though. Something's missing from that age of computing. The wonder and excitement are gone now. Too bad.
  • Check out this article [atarimagazines.com] about a $200 million dollar megaflop computer. Cf. to the article above (in slashdot) about a 10 teraflop box from standard PC parts.

  • Doctor Dobb's Journal (Score:2, Interesting)

    by fgb ( 62123 )
    For me Dr. Dobbs Journal (running light without overbyte) was a classic. I remember reading and re-reading every single article. Every month usually had a new programming language created and implemented by hobbyists. It had a spirit of excitement and adventure that I have never seen in any other magazine, and I read every and magazine I could get my hands on: Creative Computing, BYTE, REMark, Sextant (I had an article in that one), Popular Electronics, Radio Electronics, and many I don't remember anymore.

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