From Newsgroup: comp.sys.cbm

"Chris" <Chris_c2R@[removetoreply]yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message...

Although CPC Oxygen seems pretty good because they're posting an
Amstrad Action every once in a while! :-)

It'd be quicker than once in a while if we could get more people
scanning issues - particularly the earlier ones!

No, I wasn't complaining. Actually I'd like it more if some time
between postings was done (it gives be a chance of downloading the
pages & printing them!). Obviously a month maybe too long, it would
take the same amount of time that AA went for! :-)

Cheers.


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Weetomuncher wrote ...

I thought that this would be a good question to ask the 8 bit
community. I know titles like Your Sinclair, Crash and Zzap are going
to get a few mentions but I also want to know WHY your favourite was
the best!

I'm surprised that nobody mentioned these yet:

RUN
Ahoy!
Compute's Gazzette

All three had a good variety of type-in programs, technical articles, and
other interesting stuff.

Although there were a few Amiga articles, the majority of the content
covered the 8-bit machines. That was the best part!

Best regards,

Sam Gillett aka Mars Probe @ Starship Intrepid 1-972-221-4088
Last 8-bit BBS in the Dallas area. Commodore lives!




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Pre 1984 COMPUTE! Magazine
It had a vide variety of articles and type-ins covered a great range of platforms (TI, Timex, Apple II, Commodore, CoCo, Atari, etc.). Had
novice, intermediate and advanced articles sometimes hardware too.
Great personalities and all the ads were good to see too. Regardless
of what platform you had, with COMPUTE! you felt like you belonged.

Second pick would go for pre-1983 Creative Computing
Multi-platform - great for learning programming and problem solving
concepts for microcomputers, made even 70s micro tech all so exciting.
Also some great really old-school BASIC programs.

Larry

Weetomuncher wrote:

I thought that this would be a good question to ask the 8 bit
community. I know titles like Your Sinclair, Crash and Zzap are going
to get a few mentions but I also want to know WHY your favourite was
the best!

--
01000011 01001111 01001101 01001101 01001111 01000100 01001111 01010010 01000101
Larry Anderson - Sysop of Silicon Realms BBS (209) 754-1363
300-14.4k bps
Set your 8-bit C= rigs to sail for http://www.portcommodore.com/ 01000011 01001111 01001101 01010000 01010101 01010100 01000101 01010010 01010011
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"Weetomuncher" <weetomuncher@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:28e19b30.0306300118.41d0b27f@posting.google.com...

I thought that this would be a good question to ask the 8 bit
community. I know titles like Your Sinclair, Crash and Zzap are going
to get a few mentions but I also want to know WHY your favourite was
the best!

For me in the mid 80's. Compute! and Byte.

Ralph


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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.cbm

weetomuncher@yahoo.co.uk (Weetomuncher) wrote in message news:<28e19b30.0306300118.41d0b27f@posting.google.com>...

I thought that this would be a good question to ask the 8 bit
community. I know titles like Your Sinclair, Crash and Zzap are going
to get a few mentions but I also want to know WHY your favourite was
the best!

ZX Computing - full of geeky goodness for everyone who wanted to know
how to access the ROM calculator from machine code.

Hey, how come it folded?

MAtthew
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Well Ross, a new issue should be uploaded either today or tomorrow, a part
of the delay was my fault. I try to get a issue online for every weekend,
that should make for good reading.

I'm going to contact a few people I know that may have earlier issues (to my horror as a kid my local newsagent only had ACU!) If someone have issue 1 it would be great, hint hint anybody!

Of course we know you not complaining :-)

John

"Ross Simpson" <Hi_Mr_Spammer@nowhere.com.au> wrote in message news:3f00da66$0$9355$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...

"Chris" <Chris_c2R@[removetoreply]yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message...

Although CPC Oxygen seems pretty good because they're posting an
Amstrad Action every once in a while! :-)

It'd be quicker than once in a while if we could get more people
scanning issues - particularly the earlier ones!

No, I wasn't complaining. Actually I'd like it more if some time
between postings was done (it gives be a chance of downloading the
pages & printing them!). Obviously a month maybe too long, it would
take the same amount of time that AA went for! :-)

Cheers.

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.cbm


"Weetomuncher" <weetomuncher@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:28e19b30.0306300118.41d0b27f@posting.google.com...

I thought that this would be a good question to ask the 8 bit
community. I know titles like Your Sinclair, Crash and Zzap are going
to get a few mentions but I also want to know WHY your favourite was
the best!

Commodore Format, nuff said!


--
*****JCOM COMPUTER PRODUCTIONS*****
C64, SNES, VB and other rubbish
I want to show the world!
*****http://jcom.shorturl.com******


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"Phil-on-a-hill" <malcnospam@gothcorp.co.uk> wrote in message news:<_ibMa.76$ju6.793@newsfep4-glfd.server.ntli.net>...

Does no one else like Crash?

I did! :-)

(Until it turned into a comic worth buying only for the covertape...)
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.cbm

i always loved picking up YS and SU at kiosks and id read them religiously.
i loved them. sadly they didnt sell Crash in the small city i lived in but
ive got a few now ive got from ebay and one zzap! with giana sisters on the cover ( it sucks it didnt come out on spectrum, i guess it was to be
released laterbut too late when nintendo have to feck it all up, it also
sucks that Creatures didnt come on spectrum, and it was looking great too i wonder what happened with thalamus there ), aswell as more covertapes you
can shake a joystick at, i may have almost as many covertapes as games.
never knew Crash existed until about 2 or so years ago ... i dont recall any amstrad magazines or c64 ones, maybe either because i really wasn't looking
for those not being aware of their existence or maybe they really didnt
carry them, though i would have bought one once in a blue moon if they had
them for curiosities sake, i have them now though ( well a C64, not an
Amstrad yet. The CPC is a fine machine in my opinion, highly underrated by
many ). i do remember Amstrad opening a small shop in the same building id usually get my spectrum games ( the owner knew gramps so sometimes id get a freebie ) and they may have had some Amstrad magazines. i went in a couple times, but being poorer than Bush Jr.'s grammar i couldnt get one, so i
stayed away to avoid the agony ( i like having everything! maybe some of you can relate :) and i was already pissed i couldnt get an Amiga, id stare at
the thing running games every time id go into get some spectrum games, well
now i have 3 :-D

... a little cousin of mine had a C64 though , he was the only one i knew
who had one at that time. he didnt know how to use it and wanted me to get
it "going", well crap neither did i, but i figured it out and we were
playing bubble bobble in no time :-D .. a friend got a Sam Coupe before I
moved to the US, WOW! it's sick how much they go for on ebay, and rarely do,
or id have one now too. for me, that is overall the most kick ass 8-bit
machine EVER, but bad timing on their part, pretty much what the super
spectrum might have been, not quite but close. if anyone knows the juggler
demo on Amiga you should check out the Sam juggler demo on Sam. i also love
how you can have 2 brightnesses in one 8*8 block and not limited to two
colours ( if my memory serves me right ) when i saw the Neil Armstrong pic
and the King Tut pic i nearly crapped.

back to spectrum, there was always alot of cool stuff in these magazines,
the tongue in cheek humour, the mini posters advertising games that would
take up a whole page i always liked to see, the useful programming tips, type-ins, i rememeber one machine code listing that was a mile long ( not assembly but actual MC ) and i typed the whole sucker in and all it did was display "GAME OVER" all over the screen with short sounds at random pitches
and then fade the screen. 3 seconds of a program for 2 days of pulling my
hair getting sick of all that HEX and straining to see if in fact the O was
a letter or the number 0, was 5 five or was it an S, and so forth, those annoying faded listings on crap paper! all that just for a 3 second thing!. that put MC off for me fairly quickly. at least i saved it first, though im getting into it now, that ive had people make me see it in a different way
that i didnt before. there was one great coder i knew of, older guy, if i
was 13 he might have been 20, mother owned that same shop id usually goto
fro zx games, but never had the courage to ask for lessons, and books where
i lived, zilch, and alot of books on the subject suck anyway. i ordered a
few lately based on trustworthy reccomendations, like MC for the Abs.
Beginner by william tang and some others. i've had one fro C64 by Ian
Sinclair but couldnt make heads or tails of that shit.

also the game reviews and previews that helped me decide what to get were useful, but id often disagree with their ratings when id see a friend who
had a game that didnt rate so good in them. we were always copying
eachother's games anyway, i bought about 2/3 of what i have but most were pirated anyway and sold real cheap, even the non budget ones, maybe for what now is .60p. some were modified ( legally i guess. theyd often have the name
of some small software/distribution company from the counntry i lived. some
are in the vault, like Howard the Duck - Hello! Games version, but the vault took down a couple others which were perfectly fine TZXs, their loss ) for
the users in the country i lived in, but most kids had at least a decent understanding of english so i guess it was kind of pointless, so i have alternate versions of many games. one example, like the untouchables i
bought, says "los intocables" ( spanish ) on the inlay, the opening text
when the game loads is in portuguese and the game in english. weird. some
had some nice intructions before the game or part of the game itself that aren't in the normal UK releases, extra loading screen$, and some were completely translated. anyway back ontopic ...

overall my favourite ones were MicroMania from Spain which at one point
turned into this huge magazine, looked like a newspaper and was thick too,
and of course MicroHobby also from Spain. I loved MicroHobby. I cant find
the magazines but i still have the covertapes at hand. Now that was a real useful magazine. lots of cool stuff and once had a real great in depth
course in Basic Programming followed by and equally comprehensive course in Assembly that spanned over many issues, which by the way are being typed out
at speccy.org, and they may scan them too. they are thinking of putting all this stuff on CD. i know id buy it. There was nothing quite like it! so i
guess maybe MicroHobby was my favourite.

sorry for going OT there, i just got all nostalgic!

bye.




"Weetomuncher" <weetomuncher@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:28e19b30.0306300118.41d0b27f@posting.google.com...

I thought that this would be a good question to ask the 8 bit
community. I know titles like Your Sinclair, Crash and Zzap are going
to get a few mentions but I also want to know WHY your favourite was
the best!

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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.cbm

weetomuncher@yahoo.co.uk (Weetomuncher) wrote in message news:<28e19b30.0306300118.41d0b27f@posting.google.com>...

I thought that this would be a good question to ask the 8 bit
community. I know titles like Your Sinclair, Crash and Zzap are going
to get a few mentions but I also want to know WHY your favourite was
the best!

The best was undoubtedly Crash during its 84-86 heyday. No other
magazine quite captured the sense of excitement around computing in
those days. It seemed to care about its readers, showing them a lot of
respect and giving them great insight. Obviously it went to pieces and
followed the rest of the 8-bit magazines into hell, but for those few
years it was supreme.

Other mags like Zzap and YS were great in their own way, but they
created that nauseating personality cult, which tried to convince us
that the writers were all wacky dudes who we should love and envy. If
anyone has ever read PC Gamer, you'll see the arse-puckeringly awful
extent of that trend.

Russ
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.cbm

Other mags like Zzap and YS were great in their own way, but they
created that nauseating personality cult,

Well, at least in the Italian Zzap! that was performed in such a
friendly and lovely way that we all really loved the reviewers.

Such fond memories! Aw :(

Flavio


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"Ben Yates" <anoneds@netscape.net> wrote in message...

I thought that this would be a good question to ask the 8 bit
community. I know titles like Your Sinclair, Crash and Zzap are going
to get a few mentions but I also want to know WHY your favourite was
the best!

One of the best was Home Computer Magazine (formerly 99'er Magazine).
It expanded its line of computers from just the TI-99/4A to include
the Apple, Commodore (C64 and Vic), IBM (PC and jr), and eventually
the Atari and even a couple of Macintosh articles, around '83-'84.
Then a couple years later, the issues disappeared, the publisher
absconded with people's $$$, but since I wasn't affected I still think
it was the better of many. It finally released a few quarterly mags
called Home Computer Journal, before disappearing.
It had type-in programs, available On-Disk(tm) and cassette for a
small addition to the subscription, had one-liners, and very excellent articles for each program, including flow-charts with program design information, algorithms, technical information, etc.

IMO, this is fine as long as there was something for everyone in each
issue. In Australia we have a magazine (which is still going!!) called Australian Personal Computer which has been going since 1980! The
reason for this is because it has continuously changed the support for computers. Back in the early days it was the various 8bits, but the
trouble back then related towards which machines were covered (it wasn't
very good if you were an Amstrad CPC user like myself - however
occasionally there was stuff in there for it). For the last 10-15 years
the main focus in this magazine is IBMs! :-( So, it's certainally not
quite like what it was.

Cheers,
Ross.


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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.cbm

On 1 Jul 2003 04:12:21 -0700, matthew@mjwilson.demon.co.uk (Matthew
Wilson) wrote:

weetomuncher@yahoo.co.uk (Weetomuncher) wrote in message news:<28e19b30.0306300118.41d0b27f@posting.google.com>...

I thought that this would be a good question to ask the 8 bit
community. I know titles like Your Sinclair, Crash and Zzap are going
to get a few mentions but I also want to know WHY your favourite was
the best!

ZX Computing - full of geeky goodness for everyone who wanted to know
how to access the ROM calculator from machine code.

Hey, how come it folded?

I dunno - it improved toward the end of its run, in sharp contrast to
the other Speccy mags.

My favourite was Crash. So all we need now is for Mr Humphries to say
his was SU [pretty long odds I'd say] and no one will know where the
hell they are.

--
Dave
http://www.sincuser.co.uk/
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On the back of the Swedish editions, they advertise other books from their series. I don't know if all of them are translations from the English
series, but here are the titles for the books I didn't quote in my previous post listed (with approximate English translations):

* Bli vän med hemdatorn - hur den arbetar och vad den kan göra (Be friends with your home computer - how it works and what it can do)
* Introduktion till programmering - BASIC för nybörjare (Introducing programming - BASIC for beginners), with the extra subtitle "Dator behövs
ej" - "Computer not needed" :-)
* Datorspel och videospel - Hur de arbetar och hur du kan vinna (Computer games and video games - How they work and how you win)
* Att göra bilder med datorn (Making pictures with your computer)
* Robotar - Vad robotar kan göra och hur de fungerar (Robots - What robots
do and how they work)
* Information med datorn (Information with the computer)

--
\\//
Peter - http://www.softwolves.pp.se/

I do not read or respond to mail with HTML attachments.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.cbm

weetomuncher@yahoo.co.uk (Weetomuncher) wrote in news:28e19b30.0306300118.41d0b27f@posting.google.com:

I thought that this would be a good question to ask the 8 bit
community. I know titles like Your Sinclair, Crash and Zzap are going
to get a few mentions but I also want to know WHY your favourite was
the best!

For me it is Zzap!

No other magazine before or since has had that special magic that Zzap!
had. It will always have a special place for me. I used to really look forward to the next issue and was excited when arrived. We felt that we
got to know the reviewers and Oliver Frey's covers were brilliant.

Paul.
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.cbm

No other magazine before or since has had that special magic that Zzap!
had. It will always have a special place for me. I used to really look forward to the next issue and was excited when arrived. We felt that we
got to know the reviewers and Oliver Frey's covers were brilliant.

Wow! Frey was often mentioned on Zzap!Italia as one of the "great ones"
of UK's Zzap! :)


--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Flavio Ferri Benedetti *** Countertenor-Sopranist
Translation Studies (Universitat Jaume I)

http://www.orfeo-translations.com --> Translation Services http://www.caffarelli.net --> Baroque Singing - My Voice

"Nunc scio quid sit amor" (Virgilio, Bucoliche, VIII, 43)


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"Anders Carlsson" <anders.carlsson@mds.mdh.se> wrote in message...

On the back of the Swedish editions, they advertise other books
from their series.

I also own "Stridsspel" (Computer Battlegames). What can be added
is that the English text is by Daniel Isaaman and Jenny Tyler,
while all the Swedish translations were made by three people;
Johan Wahlén, Tad Gruber and Gull-Mari Lenderud.

The Swedish publisher, Brombergs Bokförlag, also hosted a book
by Christoper Evans (Swedish title "Mikrodatorernas intåg") and
the supposedly all-Swedish "Datorn och du" (the computer and you)
by Börje Langefors, which unfortunately was sold out when my copy
of Computer Battlegames was printed. :-)

That's interesting, I didn't realise there were translated into other
languages (Swedish for example).One of the later books (I think) I was lucky
to pick up in pristine condition (for .50c) at a computer fair was Expanding your Micro. On the back of that the books mentioned in the series are Guide
to Computers, Understanding the Micro, Computer & Video Games, Computer
Jargon, Computer Graphics, Inside the Chip, Computer Programming, Practise
Your BASIC, Better BASIC, Machine Code for Beginners, Practical Things to do with a Microcomputer, Computer Spacegames, Computer BattleGames, Write Your
Own Adventure Programs, Creepy Computer Games, Programming Tricks & Skills, Experiments With Your Computer, Expanding Your Micro, Write Your Own Fantasy Games, Weird Computer Games - Computer Spy Games & Mystery of Silver
Mountains - Island of Secrets.

Cheers,
Ross.


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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.cbm

My vote goes for Ahoy! over Gazette and RUN. God knows how many hours I
wasted keying in the programs in the back. Damn checksums.

"Weetomuncher" <weetomuncher@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:28e19b30.0306300118.41d0b27f@posting.google.com...

I thought that this would be a good question to ask the 8 bit
community. I know titles like Your Sinclair, Crash and Zzap are going
to get a few mentions but I also want to know WHY your favourite was
the best!

--- Synchronet 3.18b-Win32 NewsLink 1.113

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.cbm

"Ross Simpson" <Hi_Mr_Spammer@nowhere.com.au> writes:

I didn't realise there were translated into other
languages (Swedish for example).

With the risk of starting a flame war (I see this thread is nicely
cross-posted in three groups), I must say I'm surprised by how the
book gives hints on the need to change game speed on some computers:

% If you own a BBC or a ZX Spectrum, you might find some of the games
% running too fast. In a separate box next to the listings you can
% find hints on how to change the speed. Always use a higher number
% to slow down the game. Recent BBC models can run about twice as fast
% as the earlier ones, and the games seem impossible to play without
% making huge changes in speed.

I know the BBC had a very speedy BASIC, but from what I've understood,
the ZX BASIC was quite slow on executing delay loops, conditionals etc.
I don't know about the various TRS-80 models but AFAIK, of the other
computers covered by the Usborne books (VIC-20, PET, ZX81, BBC, Apple),
only the ZX81 might've had a slower BASIC if running in SLOW mode?

--
Anders Carlsson
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From Newsgroup: comp.sys.cbm

"JBones" <jhuesos@intercorp.gov> wrote in message news:r4mcnVUg6KTUypqiU-KYuQ@comcast.com...

My vote goes for Ahoy!

Me too! Ahoy is my favourite for the single reason that I had a speech
cart in my collection for like 10 years and thought it was broken because
there was nothing I could do to get it to work. I got some ahoy mags one day and while reading through them I found the instructions on how to make that cart come to life.I quickly hooked up the cart to my 128 and keyed in "init" and there it was! The currah speech 64 cart came to life.Not only that but
the magazine had a list of different commands for the cart so I could try
its features.I think it was the Dec 84 or Jan 85 issue. After that my favourite magazines are Transactor, Commodore (users or power play), Commander,Run, Info, Compute.Only recently did I get a few copies of ZZap
and its a great magazine too.

Leo
--
Check out my auction for GBA SP Headphone adapters. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3534161928
Im looking for Commodore Cartridges! Got any?
Check out my tradelist at http://www.commodore64.allhell.com


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"Leo" <commodore128@hotmailspamcentral.com> wrote in message news:<08_Oa.394836$3C2.10822833@news3.calgary.shaw.ca>...

"JBones" <jhuesos@intercorp.gov> wrote in message news:r4mcnVUg6KTUypqiU-KYuQ@comcast.com...

My vote goes for Ahoy!

Me too! Ahoy is my favourite for the single reason that I had a speech
cart in my collection for like 10 years and thought it was broken because

[snip]

I'll try to be objective. :-)

For non-format specific: Personal Computer Games. Colour, intelligent
reviews, excellent features covering a broad range of subjects.
Format Specific: Zzap!64 prior to late 1986. As with PCG, highlight
include excellent programmer/software house interviews (LucasFilm,
Datasoft, Chris Butler, "Musician's Ball", etc), The Shadow, White
Wizard.
Borderline 8-bit: First 6 or so issues of The Games Machine. Had
16-bit content, but a lot of relevant 8-bit info. Excellent
groundbreaking content ideas.


Marc Walters
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Marc Walters. Thursday. comp.sys.sinclair. Tch, eh?

Borderline 8-bit: First 6 or so issues of The Games Machine. Had
16-bit content, but a lot of relevant 8-bit info. Excellent
groundbreaking content ideas.

Couldn't agree more. It was the first attempt at something like Edge,
really. The second being the equally excellent ACE.

--
Duncan Snowden.

M RAMTOP no good, 1090:4
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