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  • Compute! (September 1988)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    compute_issue_100_1988_sep-01

    Source: Compute! – Issue Number 100 – September 1988

    Compute! was one of the most popular computer magazines for many years. It covered a wide variety of systems throughout its life including the Commodore 64, Apple II, Amiga, Atari ST, and of course PCs among others. The 10th anniversary issue (issue number 100) from September 1988 includes the following:

    Features

    • Years Gone By – We chart the history of home computing by offering up covers and articles fro the last nine years of COMPUTE! magazine.
    • That Was Then, This Is Now – What were 15 movers and shakers in the computer industry doing nine years ago, and what are they doing now?
    • Milestones in Computer History – Our birthday present to you – the most important computer hardware, software, and publications on a collector’s edition poster.
    • Conversations – Epyx Grows with David Morse – Epyx’s CEO spells out what it takes to move an entertainment publisher past the $100-million mark.
    • Buyer’s Guide – Classic Software – Browse through these 70 classic programs from personal computing’s history.

    Reviews

    • The Three Stooges
    • The Graphics Studio
    • Ultima V
    • Wordbench
    • Stealth Mission
    • Twilight’s Ransom
    • Read ‘n Roll

    Compute! Specific

    • MS-DOS
    • 64 & 128
    • Apple II
    • Amiga
    • Macintosh
    • Atari ST
    • Hints & Tips

    Columns

    • Editorial License – Throughout its first 100 issues, COMPUTE! has been the magazine that always speaks first and clearest to the home user.
    • News & Notes – CES wears many guises, Nintendo faces great DRAM drought, and GEOS gets to two.
    • Gameplay – Comics on computers take on the columnist, and win.
    • Impact – The first 100 issues of COMPUTE! have seen the magic of a revolution’s first decade.
    • Discoveries – Writing, the key to success in school, can be fun and fruitful with a word processor.
    • Levitations – The Consumer Electronics Show sure isn’t what it used to be.
    • Letters – COMPUTE! helps take a bite out of crime!
    • New Products! – Zak saves everyone’s IQ, PC gets palm-sized, sports explode from Accolade, and more new products.

    …and more!


    Amiga Apple ][ Atari ST Commodore 64 Computer Arcana DOS Macintosh 📎and tagged

  • Compute!’s PC (January 1988)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    compute_pc_issue_03_1988_jan-000

    Source: Compute!’s PC – Issue Number 3 – January 1988

    Compute! was a popular multi-format computer magazine that was published throughout much of the 1980s and 1990s. In addition to the main title, they published several other machine specific magazines, some more popular and longer lasting than others. Compute!’s PC Magazine is one such publication. It was dedicated to DOS based PCs and included a disk but this made it relatively expensive.

    The January 1988 issue of Compute!’s PC Magazine includes the following:

    Software On Disk

    • The Best of the Boards: PC-Art – A full featured, easy to use drawing program that requires an IBM PC, PCjr, XT, AT or compatible; DOS 2.0+; 256K RAM; CGA or EGA graphics; and a printer (optional). It is written in Quick BASIC and was available on many BBS systems to download in addition to the disk included with this issue.
    • EZDOS – This program enhances DOS with 50 new commands and additional features. It requires a PC with at least DOS 2.0 and 256K of RAM.
    • RoboKey – This program allows you to automate DOS operations as well as virtually any DOS application program.
    • Wrimage – A customizable word guessing game.
    • Keyboard Lock-Out – A security program that blanks the screen and locks out the keyboard. I guess you could think of this a a predecessor to the screen saver.
    • Burger Blaster – An arcade style game that’s sort of a cross between Burger Time and Space Invaders.

    Features & Columns

    • The Editor’s View – Details about what is on the disk and the decision to remove the menu program.
    • PC News & Notes – New products include: Microsoft’s Mach 20 speed-up card (converts XT into a 286 based AT); Microsoft’s Bookshelf on CD-ROM which includes World Almanac, American Heritage Dictionary, Roget’s Thesaurus, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, Houghton Mifflin Usage Alert and Spelling Verifier, and more; the Toshiba T1000 laptop featuring 512K of RAM, 3.5″ disk drive, and more; the Toshiba 386 based T5100; and the Compaq Deskpro 368/20 and Portable 386. Plus attempts to ban rental software by Congress, reduced prices on the Inboard 80386 accelerator (now $1,595), Lotus removes disk based copy protection on the latest version of Lotus 1-2-3, and more.
    • Reader’s Feedback – Letters from readers about the IBM PCjr, DOS in ROM, programming languages, saving BASIC programs and more.
    • Getting Down to Business: Why Everyone Should Have Keyboard Macros – Creating and using keyboard Macros for WordStar, Lotus 1-2-3 and other applications.
    • Trapping Disk Errors in Turbo Pascal – A tutorial on how to detect and handle disk errors in Turbo Pascal.
    • A Winter’s Tale – Parameters to enter into the editor of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator to create a winter themed flight adventure.

    Reviews

    • Nota Bene – A $500 word processor with 1,000 page manual.
    • Sub Battle – A submarine simulator from Epxy for PCs with at least 128K.
    • Personal Portfolio Manager – Described as a “complete securities-portfolio management tool”.

    …and more!


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  • Commodore 64 Vs. PCjr

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Commodore 64
    It’s not how much you pay. It’s how much you get.
    1984

    http://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/166898035660/vintageadvertising-commodore-64-its-not-how

    This particular Commodore 64 ad compared the Commodore 64 to the, at the time, recently released IBM PCjr. The Commodore 64 was introduced a couple of years earlier and the IBM PC had also been around for a few years. However, the PC was still meant more as a business machine and was very expensive for a home computer. The PCjr was meant to be IBM’s competition for the home. The PCjr failed miserably and it would ultimately be cheap PC clones that brought the PC to homes.

    There really wasn’t any competition here. With the Commodore 64 you got vastly more for your money that with the PCjr. Some of the key points mentioned in the ad:

    Both computers came with 64K of RAM. While pretty much every piece of software in existance for the Commodore 64 (which was already quite a lot by this point) was designed to work in 64K, 64K was not enough for many PC programs. While the PCjr was PC compatible for the most part, the amount of RAM limited what software could be run on it.

    At the time of this ad, the PCjr cost $669 while the Commodore 64 only cost $215. In both cases these prices were for the basic computer only. For the cost of just the PCjr, with a Commodore 64 you could also get a disk drive, monitor, printer and modem making it a vastly more usable system than the PCjr. You could of course get all of these peripherals for the PCjr as well but you would spend thousands doing so.

    The keyboard was also far superior on the Commodore 64. While not the best keyboard in the world and also not detachable like the PCjr keyboard, it was still a much nicer keyboard overall than the rubber chicklet style keyboard that came with the PCjr. For anyone who knew how to type even a little, those chicklet style keyboards were pretty unusable. I suppose if you were more of a hunt and peck style typist then it wouldn’t matter quite as much.

    Finally, unlike the PCjr (and the PC in general), the Commodore 64 had custom sound and graphics chips (the SID and VIC-II respectively). The CPU may have been a little slower in the Commodore 64 than in the PCjr but it more than made up for it with these custom chips. This made the biggest difference in games of course but it also helped with any kind of music or graphics software.

    “You can buy a computer for a lot of money. Or buy a lot of computer for the money.” Indeed.


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