• Tag Archives computers

  • RUN: The Home User’s Guide to Commodore Computing (January 1985)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: RUN: The Home User’s Guide to Commodore Computing – Issue Number 13 – January 1985

    RUN was one of the most popular Commodore 8-bit computer magazines, mostly covering the Commodore 64. It was also one of the magazines I bought the most growing up. The January 1985 issue includes:

    Features

    • Trapped in the Maze – Creating a maze game in BASIC on the VIC-20.
    • Writing Word Games – A guide to creating word games (like Hangman).
    • Smoking Joe – Some tips and a program for creating sprites.
    • Quatro – A type-in tic-tac-toe game for the Commodore 64 with the twist that you have to get four in a row instead of three.
    • Don’t Forget! – A type-in program for the Commodore 64 that gives you a calendar and the ability to create appointments.
    • Selecting The Right Printer – A guide to choosing the best printer for you. Some models mentioned here include the 1520 Plotter, 1525e, MPS-801, Prowriter, Okidata 82 and 92 series, Epson MX, RX, and FX series, Gemini 10X/15X, and more.
    • Three Printers From Commodore – Reviews of the Commodore DPS-1101 Daisy Whee printer, and the Commodore 1526 and MPS-803 Dot Matrix printers.
    • Disk Tips For Beginner – A guide to managing your floppy disks.
    • Let There Be Light Pens – At one point in time, before the mouse took over for good, light pens seemed to be the up and coming input device. This article is an introductory guide to light pens.

    Departments

    • RUNning Ruminations – A look ahead to what is in this issue and a request for articles on the new Plus/4 and Commodore 16.
    • Magic – Short programs for recovering an erased program, extracting lines from an existing program, tracing the execution of BASIC programs, reading raw data from tape, using a voice synthesizer for debugging, and more.
    • Software Gallery – Reviews of Questprobe: The Hulk, Kidwriter, Saucer Attack!, Space Taxi (one of my all time favorites though it only gets a ‘B’ rating here), abd Word Processor – Professional.
    • Clubs – A list of Commodore computer related clubs and user groups.
    • Commodore Clinic – Questions answered about documentation for the Commodore B128, compiling BASIC programs, word processing programs on cassette, CP/M on the Commodore 64, 1541 disk drivr problems, blowing fuses on the VIC-20, keypads for the Commodore 64, and much more.
    • Mail RUN – Letters from readers about CP/M problems on the Commodore 64, Commodore in South Africa, Panasonic printers, and more.
    • RUN’s 1984 Index – An index of articles and reviews from RUN covering all of 1984.
    • New Products RUNdown – A look at new producs including Suspect from Infocom, Breakdance from Epyx, President Elect from SSI, F-15 Strike Eagle from MicroProse, The Operating System from Hacker’s Hardware, The Professor from Progressive Peripherals, and more.


    Back cover of the January 1985 issue of RUN
    …and more!


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  • ANALOG Computing (July 1984)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: ANALOG Computing – Issue Number 20 – July 1984

    ANALOG was one of the most popular Atari 8-bit computer magazines in the U.S. It was published from 1981 to 1989. It had all the typical stuff you would expect in 8-bit computer magazine of the 1980s including reviews, type-in programs, and more. The July 1984 issue includes:

    Features

    • The Winners (ANALOG’s Favorite Games) – ANALOG editors pick their all time favorite games. Some of these games include Star Raiders, MiG Alley Ace, Breakout, Boulder Dash, Archon, Miner 2049er, Missile Command, Pac-Man, Gateway to Apshai, Donkey Kong, Pole Position, Choplifter, M.U.L.E., Agent USA, Shamus, Wizard of Wor, and others.
    • Buzz-zap! – A type-in maze game in which you control a bee who must avoid killer strawberries and other obstacles to make it back to the hive.
    • Bacterion! – This type-in game is described as a sort of sequel to Robotron though it plays more like Asteroids.
    • What Is It? – A type-in educational game for younger kids in which they must type the name of the object that appears on screen.
    • AlterDOS – A type-in program that modifies DOS to recognize files other than AUTORUN.SYS as the autorun file on a disk.
    • Auto Line Numbering+ – This type-in program will assist you in writing your own programs by autonumbering them and performing other tasks.
    • ConTEXT – This type-in program will convert Letter Perfect word processing files into a more standard format that can be used with other programs on the Atari.
    • Stars 3-D in Action! – Action! is a programming language and IDE provided on cartridge and available only for Atari 8-bit computers. This type-in program is rewrite of a previously published type-in program in ANALOG rewritten here in Action!.
    • Bounce in Action! – An Action! version of a previously published type-in program in which you place obstacles to change the direction of a bouncing ball. This version has higher resolution and more colors than the original.
    • Scredit – A type-in program for helping you to design smooth scrolling screens.

    Product Reviews

    • Boulder Dash – A review of the classic Boulder Dash by First Star Software.
    • Universe – A rather ambitious (for its time) sci-fi adventure game that shipped on four disks and cost $89.95.
    • Seven Cities of Gold – An action/adventure/strategy game from Electronic Arts in which you play the role of a sixteenth century Spanish conquistador.
    • Movie Maker – This software allows you to create animated movies 30 to 60 seconds long.

    Columns

    • Reader Comment – Readers write in about modem usage.
    • Griffin’s Lair – Reviews of educational software with an emphasis on typing skills this month, including Mastertype, Type Attack, Typo, and Touch Typing.
    • Our Game – Game development in which the readers participate.
    • BASIC Training – Useful BASIC tips for those writing games including using vector routines and ways to speed up games.
    • Boot Camp – An ongoing assembly language tutorial. This edition covers multiplying numbers.

    …and more!


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  • Maximum PC (September 2000)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Maximum PC – September 2000

    Another issue of what was my favorite PC magazine. It was among the latest survivors in the magazine world as well. This magazine was generally targeted at those who were power users. People that build their own PCs, do PC gaming, overclock, etc. The September 2000 issue includes:

    • Commport – Letters from readers about the Voodoo 5 5500 AGP, color temperature calibration, the demise of Psygnosis, computer heat, AOL and privacy, the KX133 chipset, turning off the task scheduler, and more.
    • Inside Sources – Low power CPUs shown off at PC Expo including Transmeta’s Crusoe, a low power 600 MHz Pentium III, and AMD’s K6-2+ at PC Expo; the DVD-RAM / DVD+RW war continues; and a look at the new bluetooth technology.
    • Watch Dog – Philips settles lawsuit regarding defective CD-R drives; problems with Access Micro PC, getting Klipsch speakers in Canada, Aureal files for bankruptcy, and more.
    • Peripheral Vision – A look at new tech toys including the Casio Freedia FZ-500P Super-Compact Printer, Creative Video Blaster WebCam GO Plus, and Olympus Eye-Trek FMD-150W-US.
    • Fast Forward – A fair price for MP3a and the future of music consumption.
    • Dream Machine 2000 – Every year, Maximum PC editors built the ultimate PC that could be built. In 2000, that was a desktop featuring dual 1 GHz Pentium III CPUs, an Intel OR840 motherboard, a pair of 256MB Kingston RDRAM modules, a Hercules 3D Prophet II 64MB video card, Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! Platinum + Live Drive II, Sigma Designs Real Magic Hollywood Plus MPEG Decoder, Plextor Ultraplex 40x Max CD-ROM, two Plexwriter 12/4/32 drives, Pioneer DVD-115 16x DVD-ROM, two 18GB Seagate X15 SCSI drives, a 75GB IBM 75GXP drive, an Adaptec 39160 Ultra 160 SCSI card, an Iomega 100MB Internal IDE ZIP drive, a Sony F500 monitor, Klipsch ProMedia V.2-400 speakers, Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro USB, Logitech First Mouse Wheel, and a PC Power and Cooling Solid-Steel Tower. All for the low, low price of $11,987.
    Dream Machine 2000
    • Hands Down: The 25 Best Palm Apps – This list of best Palm Pilot apps includes things like Unitconv (an app for converting units), Cruisecontrol (an overclocking app), Arranger (an organizer app), Moon Phase (will give you the phase of the moon for any date), and lots of others.
    • Thunderbird’s A Go-Go! – A detailed look at AMD’s new iteration of the Athlon CPU. The big changes were to the cache architecture which also allowed it to go from slot based back to socket based.
    • Whitepaper – A talk with Matrox regarding its OpenGL driver.
    • Ask The Doctor – Questions answered about using Premiere with a Compaq Presario 7970, problems with IE 5.5, problems with ripping MP3s, DMA issues, using SoftFSB, and more.
    • Hardware Reviews – Reviews of the Polywell Poly A30k7-1000 system, Diamond Rio 600 MP3 player, Hercules 3D Prophet II 64MB graphics card, Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2 32MB graphics card, Hercules 3D Prophet II 32MB graphics card, OnStream 30GB tape drive, Dell XPS8100R Special Edition digital studio, Samsung SM-304B CD-RW/DVD drive, Toshiba SD-R1002 CD-RW/DVD drive, and Hewlett-Packard Deskjet 350CBi mobile color printer.
    • Game Reviews – Reviews of Diablo II, Deus Ex, MDK2, SimCity 3000 Unlimited, StarLancer, and Vampire: The Masquerade Redemption.

    …and more!


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