4 ms·

I'd almost forgotten the excitement I felt running to the shop to buy a "computer magazine". Typing in new games line by line and then hitting "run". Saturday m

I'd almost forgotten the excitement I felt running to the shop to buy a "computer magazine". Typing in new games line by line and then hitting "run". Saturday morning well spent. Looking back now the publishing industry around home computers was a whole world in itself. And in general, the nerdy publishing world was something to behold. Instead of websites we had weekly paper digests like "Practical Electronics", "Wireless World", "Electronic Music Maker". We also had an electronic component shop in every town, even before Tandy (Radio Shack) and Maplins most places a "radio repairs store". Going to the shop to buy some BC108s, a 555 timer, and a list of caps and resistors was where pocket money went. I think there is something else going on for the retro-wave generation. who cannot possibly be nostalgic, since they didn't live through that. Instead the relative simplicity and accessibility of old tech has an appeal. When a 12 year old can understand the entire system (yes full schematics), program it and build peripherals with components from the high-street, it felt like an entirely different relationship with technology.

timthorn 4y ago
Practical Electronics is still going strong (monthly, though)
alfonsodev 4y ago
In Spain we had MicroHobby[1], it was coming with a cassette tape, sometimes two. [1] https://microhobby.speccy.cz/mhforever/index.htm https://microhobby.speccy.cz/mhforever/index.htm
- Schiphol 4y ago
  I remember the Alice in Wonderland text adventure they shipped in that cassette once and the sense of, uh, wonder and adventure as I progressed through the game <3
- detritus 4y ago
  I fondly remember the almost bazaar-like experience of perusing the tape racks in local Spanish supermarkets, trying to work out which (if any) of the offerings were worth my couple of hundred peseta investment. Sometimes lucky with a great game, othertimes.. not so much :)
  - kingcharles 4y ago
    I don't know how it is now, but I always looked forward to my holidays in Spain as a kid in the 80s because of Spain's lax copyright laws. Every shop seemed to have racks of pirated 8-bit video games for sale and I would always go home with a few. This continued even after consoles were popular, with pirated multi-game carts freely available on the high street.
    - anthk 4y ago
      You had pirate GB and NES carts on video renting stores...
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Usually all the Spanish stuff also landed on our side of the border as well. I have to thank Spanish game and programming magazines, as well as some famous adventure games like La Abadía del Crimen, for being bilingual in mother languages instead of doing the usual Portunhol.
  - anthk 4y ago
    La Abadia del Crimen had a remake 15-20 years ago.
VariableStar 4y ago
ahh me too ... between ages 10-14 in the 80s I would spend my way back from school looking for magazines with schematics, then on saturday mornings I will bike to the local component shop and spend my money there, back home the rest of saturday and sunday went by soldering boards, building amplifiers, alarms, thermometers, regulated powersupply units, radio transmiters, random LED arrangements and what not ... ah, and also exploding capacitors
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
UncleSlacky 4y ago
> the publishing industry around home computers was a whole world in itself. It's how Future Publishing started, their first magazine was Amstrad Action: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_plc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_plc
- mattl 4y ago
  Which in turn gave us the TED talks. Also LibreOffice can trace its lineage back to StarWriter on the CPC.
TMWNN 4y ago
>Looking back now the publishing industry around home computers was a whole world in itself. PC Magazine's December 1983 issue was almost 800 pages (<https://books.google.com/books?id=05wAGZQlo9QC&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=05wAGZQlo9QC&pg=PP1#v=onep...>); almost certainly the thickest in the history of magazine publishing. (PC soon began publishing every two weeks.) BYTE peaked in, I believe, November 1983 (<https://archive.org/details/sim_byte_1983-11_8_11 https://archive.org/details/sim_byte_1983-11_8_11>, with a comparably thick issue. 80 Micro peaked in November 1982 (<https://archive.org/details/sim_80-micro_1982-11_34 https://archive.org/details/sim_80-micro_1982-11_34>, at more than 500 pages; by 1983, with the IBM PC clearly becoming the standard, serving the TRS-80 market was less lucrative.

timthorn 4y ago

Practical Electronics is still going strong (monthly, though)

alfonsodev 4y ago

In Spain we had MicroHobby[1], it was coming with a cassette tape, sometimes two. [1] https://microhobby.speccy.cz/mhforever/index.htm https://microhobby.speccy.cz/mhforever/index.htm

Schiphol 4y ago
I remember the Alice in Wonderland text adventure they shipped in that cassette once and the sense of, uh, wonder and adventure as I progressed through the game <3
detritus 4y ago
I fondly remember the almost bazaar-like experience of perusing the tape racks in local Spanish supermarkets, trying to work out which (if any) of the offerings were worth my couple of hundred peseta investment. Sometimes lucky with a great game, othertimes.. not so much :)
- kingcharles 4y ago
  I don't know how it is now, but I always looked forward to my holidays in Spain as a kid in the 80s because of Spain's lax copyright laws. Every shop seemed to have racks of pirated 8-bit video games for sale and I would always go home with a few. This continued even after consoles were popular, with pirated multi-game carts freely available on the high street.
  - anthk 4y ago
    You had pirate GB and NES carts on video renting stores...
pjmlp 4y ago
Usually all the Spanish stuff also landed on our side of the border as well. I have to thank Spanish game and programming magazines, as well as some famous adventure games like La Abadía del Crimen, for being bilingual in mother languages instead of doing the usual Portunhol.
- anthk 4y ago
  La Abadia del Crimen had a remake 15-20 years ago.

VariableStar 4y ago

ahh me too ... between ages 10-14 in the 80s I would spend my way back from school looking for magazines with schematics, then on saturday mornings I will bike to the local component shop and spend my money there, back home the rest of saturday and sunday went by soldering boards, building amplifiers, alarms, thermometers, regulated powersupply units, radio transmiters, random LED arrangements and what not ... ah, and also exploding capacitors

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

UncleSlacky 4y ago

> the publishing industry around home computers was a whole world in itself. It's how Future Publishing started, their first magazine was Amstrad Action: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_plc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_plc

mattl 4y ago
Which in turn gave us the TED talks. Also LibreOffice can trace its lineage back to StarWriter on the CPC.

TMWNN 4y ago

>Looking back now the publishing industry around home computers was a whole world in itself. PC Magazine's December 1983 issue was almost 800 pages (<https://books.google.com/books?id=05wAGZQlo9QC&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=05wAGZQlo9QC&pg=PP1#v=onep...>); almost certainly the thickest in the history of magazine publishing. (PC soon began publishing every two weeks.) BYTE peaked in, I believe, November 1983 (<https://archive.org/details/sim_byte_1983-11_8_11 https://archive.org/details/sim_byte_1983-11_8_11>, with a comparably thick issue. 80 Micro peaked in November 1982 (<https://archive.org/details/sim_80-micro_1982-11_34 https://archive.org/details/sim_80-micro_1982-11_34>, at more than 500 pages; by 1983, with the IBM PC clearly becoming the standard, serving the TRS-80 market was less lucrative.