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 June 1987 issue, showingLaser Chess | |
| Frequency | Monthly |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Small System Services (1979–1983) ABC Publishing (1983–1994) |
| First issue | November / December 1979 |
| Final issue | September 1994 |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | New York City |
| ISSN | 0194-357X |
Compute! (ISSN 0194-357X), often stylized asCOMPUTE!, is an Americanhome computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay'sPET Gazette, one of the first magazines for theCommodore PET.[1] In its 1980s heyday,Compute! covered all major platforms, and several single-platform spinoffs of the magazine were launched. The most successful of these wasCompute!'s Gazette, which catered toVIC-20,Commodore 64, and later theCommodore 128 computer users.
Compute! printedtype-in programs for games, utilities, and applications, usually inBASIC. Often there were multiple versions for different computers. Sometimes programs were provided as lists of numbers representing amachine language program, to be typed in a utility calledMLX.
Compute!'s original goal was to write about and publish programs for all of the computers that used some version of theMOS Technology 6502 CPU. It started out in 1979.[2]
ABC Publishing acquired Compute! Publications in May 1983 for $18 million in stock, and raised circulation of the magazine from 200,000 to 420,000 by the end of the year.Compute!'s Gazette, for Commodore computers, began publishing that year.[3]Compute! claimed in 1983 that it published moretype-in programs "in each issue than any magazine in the industry".[4] A typical issue would feature a large-scale program for one of the covered platforms, with smaller programs for one or more platforms filling the remainder of the issue's type-ins.[5]
Editors of the magazine included Robert Lock, Richard Mansfield, Charles Brannon, and Tom R. Halfhill. Noted columnists includedJim Butterfield, educatorFred D'Ignazio and science fiction authorOrson Scott Card.[6]
In 1984–1985,Compute! published type-in listings for theSpeedScript word processor by Charles Brannon, which was on-par with commercial offerings at the time.
In 1987,Laser Chess for theAtari ST wonCompute!'s programming competition and versions were published for other systems in the magazine. MultipleLaser Chess inspired games have been written since then.
With the May 1988 issue, the magazine was redesigned and the type-in program listings were dropped.[7]
In 1990,Compute! was out of publication for several months when it was sold to General Media, publishers at the time ofOmni andPenthouse magazines, in May of that year. General Media changed the title of the magazine toCOMPUTE, without the exclamation point, and the cover design was changed to resemble that ofOMNI magazine.Ziff Davis boughtCompute!'s assets, including its subscriber list, in 1994.[8] General Media had ceased its publication before the sale.[citation needed]
After Compute! Publications, Robert Lock started another company, Signal Research, which was among the first to publish magazines and books about computer games. Among the biggest magazine published by Signal Research wasGame Players, a magazine devoted to Nintendo, PC, and Sega gaming. He also wrote the bookThe Traditional Potters of Seagrove, N.C. in 1994, and startedSouthern Arts Journal, a quarterly magazine featuring essays, fiction and poetry about all things Southern, in 2005, but it ceased publication the next year after only four issues.[9]
Tom R. Halfhill went on to become a senior editor atByte. He is currently a technology analyst at The Linley Group and a senior editor ofMicroprocessor Report.[10]
David D. Thornburg continued to work in the field of educational technology and was involved in projects both in the US and Brazil.[11]
Charles G. Brannon moved to theSan Francisco Bay Area to work as a Project Manager forEpyx, before moving back to Greensboro and working for his father's insurance wholesaler company Group US as an Information Technology Manager.[12] He has retired as of 2016.
Under the name COMPUTE! Books,Compute! sold6 × 9 inch spiral bound collections of articles previously published in the magazine. These were often platform-specific, such asCOMPUTE's! First Book of Atari andCOMPUTE!'s First Book of Atari Graphics. Some original books were also published, such asMapping the Atari (1983) by Ian Chadwick.