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C64 Magazines - The wonder years

 
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tomz/TIDE
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 11:20 pm    Post subject: C64 Magazines - The wonder years Reply with quote

Remember the time you could stroll into your local newsagent and choose your C64 mag, for some of you reading, you may not have had this joy, but for many C64 enthusiast it was a monthly ritual, something to looked forward to approxomately every 30 days. ZZAP 64/Compute/Commodore User/ Commodore Format and a heap of others.

For myself ZZAP 64 was THE MAG!! It covered games extensively and I lost many hours typing in listings and using their poke cheats to enhance my game play (be actually able to finish a game) and Im proud to say I still have most issues of ZZAP even to this day,and yes I still read thru them occasionally. Of course the mags varied and I did use CDU for learning purposes as they covered coding fairly well. COMPUTE was a great mag especially in the area of Basic,yeah some of you may point out that their MC section was pretty extensive,but I feel it was Basic coding that they covered the best.

And as for the last one (before that too moved on) Commodore Format, I guess that one only had a limited life once future publishing took over as they were more interested in preserving profits as opposed to formats, but credit whetre credit is due,that was nice mag,even though it bacame thinner and thinner with each issue,and their last ish was the thinnest Crying or Very sad

What Magazines (if any) did you get to chance to read and what did you like about it? Was it the games on the cover disk/s or the you type it, listings? How happy were you when after several hours of typing you discovered that your prg did not work?

Did their reviews make you rush out and buy a certain game?

Share your experience Smile

Smile tomz Smile
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retrobrad
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:46 pm    Post subject: Re: C64 Magazines - The wonder years Reply with quote

tomz/TIDE wrote:
Remember the time you could stroll into your local newsagent and choose your C64 mag, for some of you reading, you may not have had this joy, but for many C64 enthusiast it was a monthly ritual, something to looked forward to approxomately every 30 days. ZZAP 64/Compute/Commodore User/ Commodore Format and a heap of others.

For myself ZZAP 64 was THE MAG!! It covered games extensively and I lost many hours typing in listings and using their poke cheats to enhance my game play (be actually able to finish a game) and Im proud to say I still have most issues of ZZAP even to this day,and yes I still read thru them occasionally. Of course the mags varied and I did use CDU for learning purposes as they covered coding fairly well. COMPUTE was a great mag especially in the area of Basic,yeah some of you may point out that their MC section was pretty extensive,but I feel it was Basic coding that they covered the best.

And as for the last one (before that too moved on) Commodore Format, I guess that one only had a limited life once future publishing took over as they were more interested in preserving profits as opposed to formats, but credit whetre credit is due,that was nice mag,even though it bacame thinner and thinner with each issue,and their last ish was the thinnest Crying or Very sad

What Magazines (if any) did you get to chance to read and what did you like about it? Was it the games on the cover disk/s or the you type it, listings? How happy were you when after several hours of typing you discovered that your prg did not work?

Did their reviews make you rush out and buy a certain game?

Share your experience Smile

Smile tomz Smile


zzap 64 mags are the greatest! from cover to cover, theyre filled precious info for the serious c64 user!

i love reading them these days, even the adverts in them, it makes you feel like youre back in the 80's!

but to be honest ididnt do any programming on the c64, i may have been a bit young? born in 1982 Smile

but i did when they had similar articles in amiga mags
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tomz/TIDE
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 9:32 pm    Post subject: C64 Magazines - The wonder years Reply with quote

Yeah ZZAP64 has to be one of my alltime faves but I did learn a lot from mags like COMPUTE and of course Commodore Disk User (CDU) that last one I found to be extremely informative and helped me to learn a bit more about the workings (code wise) of the C64 Smile

We all have to start somewhere,and these C64 magazines were a wealth of knowledge on a monthly basis,its hard to describe to you,going into town to get the monthly issue of ZZAP64 or Commodore Format,looking at the cover tape on the mag,and knowing that you woulkd see whats on that tape for at least 1/2 hour,the time it took you to drive home and load it in your C64. I will always remmeber these times with fondness.

Commodore Scene (originally called COMPUTER SCENE) was one of the 1st mags released when the commercial mags stopped getting released (FUTURE Publishing dropped Commodore Format in favour of concentrating on Amiga Format, all to do with $$$$$) well a guy called Richard Bowen started Computer Scene (pleeze xcuse hist.lesson)
you could only get it by mail order but there were others as well (BINARY ZONE run by Kenz in the UK) they are worth googling anyway there were a few others ,similar most good some crappy,well anyone on this forum ever read one of these mags

eg Computer Scene
Commodore Cracker

We shouldnt forget LOADSTAR, although a diskmag, you could printout most of it (except fot the actual prgs on each issue.) and as a former member of the MCCC I received free a few issues of LOADSTAR as well as CEE 64 ( a triple disk issue mag same era as LS) which came from the same continent (USA) both were excellent.

Any of these ring a bell??

Smile tomz Smile
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jungle ninja
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 4:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, I loved the ZZapp 64!. I got the whole deal on dvd now. You can download it, it's a truckload or order it in England. I got them all, scanned in and all. With cover tapes, ect. It's just fun, to be able to read them again.
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 9:43 pm    Post subject: C64 Magazines - The wonder years Reply with quote

Yeah JUNGLE NINJA, Zapp64 was my all time fave C64 mag,as it covered my interests at the time,games,pokes and cheats but I do envy you having all the contents of all their cover tapes,as Im missing a few I think.

On the other hand, you cant read your dvd in the toilet ,one of the last places remaining to man as a place of solitude (and reading) like I can. Wink

And an apology and a correction regarding a previous post, CEE 64 was what I called the NTSC disk mag, but it wasnt the full name, that was
CEE 64 ALIVE and it was around 1993-94 that I first got one of their issues, which was almost 4000 blocks in size (on 3 disks)

CDU was also excellent, especially in the area of coding

Smile tomz Smile
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 2:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yep, ur right about that, I love reading game mags in the toilet room!
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 10:31 pm    Post subject: C64 magazines - The wonder years Reply with quote

Of course if you had a laptop running VICE, then you too could enjoy the benefits of using a Komputa in the outhouse Razz

Smile tomz Smile
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retrobrad
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 6:31 am    Post subject: Re: C64 magazines - The wonder years Reply with quote

tomz/TIDE wrote:
Of course if you had a laptop running VICE, then you too could enjoy the benefits of using a Komputa in the outhouse Razz

Smile tomz Smile



that would have to be a pretty long stay in the toilet!
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jungle ninja
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 6:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, that would drive my family crazy!
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 9:44 pm    Post subject: C64 magazines - The wonder years Reply with quote

The lenght of time you stay is irrelevant, its the quality that counts,plus at my age.................(please fill in the dots)

And dont think about your family going crazy, think more along the lines of it being your Fortress Of Solitude (yeah just like Superman had) Wink

Smile tomz Smile
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 8:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I also used to love Zzap but what i loved more was the magazine "ACE". It covered C64, Amiga, Atari ST, Spectrum, Archimedes, Sega, Nintendo, NEO GEO, FM Towns, PC. You name it!, it covered it!!. Plus the whole read just ooozed professionalism.

TGM was another great one Smile
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Ike
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:46 pm    Post subject: Commodore Format Reply with quote

My Fav was Commodore Format!!! I nearly have the complete set. I was only 12 when it came out but bought it religiously. I actually bought a few I didn't have off Ebay and again it felt like I was 12 again!! Oh the memories. Wink
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retrobrad
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 8:58 pm    Post subject: Re: Commodore Format Reply with quote

Ike wrote:
My Fav was Commodore Format!!! I nearly have the complete set. I was only 12 when it came out but bought it religiously. I actually bought a few I didn't have off Ebay and again it felt like I was 12 again!! Oh the memories. Wink


im guessing commodore format then turned into amiga format, is that right?
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 9:26 pm    Post subject: C64 magazines - The wonder years Reply with quote

@-Brad- Nope, both Commodore Format and Amiga Format were alive at the same time it just that when future publishing in the uk stopped making as much profit on CF as they were accustomed to ,they decided to kill it off.

But it was a fine commercial mag! so IKE if you want some missing copies of CF for your colly, well you could always whack an addy in the wanted section of this forum, you never know your luck............... Wink
(dont like your chances with issue 1 as thats a collectors item Smile )

Smile tomz Smile
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Ike
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 9:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

hmmmmmmm Issue 1. Can only dream Crying or Very sad I started at issue 5
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