Slightly OT: Old computer magazines.

[matthew180]

I have quite a collection of old computer magazines such as PC World, BYTE, PC Computing, Compute!, and various others. All these date from 1982 to 1989 or so, but lots of gaps since I did not have a subscription to any one magazine.

 

Before I toss these into the recycling, does anyone know if these old magazines are valuable to anyone? I'd rather donate them to a collector or something, but it's time for me to cut them loose.

[+adamantyr]

I have quite a collection of old computer magazines such as PC World, BYTE, PC Computing, Compute!, and various others. All these date from 1982 to 1989 or so, but lots of gaps since I did not have a subscription to any one magazine.

 

Before I toss these into the recycling, does anyone know if these old magazines are valuable to anyone? I'd rather donate them to a collector or something, but it's time for me to cut them loose.

 

Old computer magazines are pretty cool to vintage enthusiasts... and a lot of them have not been scanned in or digitized for preservation. I'd at least check out eBay or make some posts here on AtariAge before consigning them to oblivion.

 

Adamantyr

[+Vorticon]

I have quite a collection of old computer magazines such as PC World, BYTE, PC Computing, Compute!, and various others. All these date from 1982 to 1989 or so, but lots of gaps since I did not have a subscription to any one magazine.

 

Before I toss these into the recycling, does anyone know if these old magazines are valuable to anyone? I'd rather donate them to a collector or something, but it's time for me to cut them loose.

Matt, I'd be interested in the Byte magazines.

Edited February 6, 2011 by Vorticon

[+save2600]

I'd be interested in anything non-PC clone related (or so much so) such as your Compute! issues. Depends which ones though as I already have a good selection. Any other non-clone mags? Anything for the TI, Commodore, Atari, etc.?

[AtariLeaf]

I'd love to find some old Rainbow magazines - these were the official magazine for the Tandy Color Computer.

[+adamantyr]

I'd love to find some old Rainbow magazines - these were the official magazine for the Tandy Color Computer.

 

Me too! There was other more obscure CoCo magazines as well. My brother's friend had a whole set of Color Computer Magazine, which included a pretty cool Star Trek game. I've never been able to find them online digitized anywhere...

 

Adamantyr

[Mirage]

I still have almost all the Compute! Gazette's (I think I'm missing 1 or 2) and most of the regular Compute!'s except what was lost in the mail to me and a bunch of other Commodore magazines, and even though I'm pretty sure I have PDF's of most if not all of them now, I can't seem to let go of them! There's just something about touching the physical magazines and flipping through them just like when I was a kid.

 

To me, that's priceless.

 

So yeah, I hope they find good homes and don't get chucked.

[matthew180]

I agree with everyone, I like having the magazines too, they are an instant travel back in time and a fun nostalgia trip. I just have a lot of them and it is hard to justify keeping them when most have not been touched in 25 years - literally. I probably have a little bit of everything, maybe even that Rainbow mag. I tended to buy what I thought was cool, not necessarily mags only about computers I owned. I'll dig everything out and make some sort of a list. I'm not sure how comprehensive I'll be though, but we'll see how it goes.

 

Vorticon, save2600, AtariLeaf: I'll give you first dibs on the mags you indicated you had interest in.

 

I may end up keeping a few here and there, just for the memories. I don't know. I get a feeling that, as soon as I start going through them, I won't want to give up any... I have to trim back though, too much stuff, hard to breath!

[InfernalKeith]

I agree with everyone, I like having the magazines too, they are an instant travel back in time and a fun nostalgia trip. I just have a lot of them and it is hard to justify keeping them when most have not been touched in 25 years - literally. I probably have a little bit of everything, maybe even that Rainbow mag. I tended to buy what I thought was cool, not necessarily mags only about computers I owned. I'll dig everything out and make some sort of a list. I'm not sure how comprehensive I'll be though, but we'll see how it goes.

 

Vorticon, save2600, AtariLeaf: I'll give you first dibs on the mags you indicated you had interest in.

 

I may end up keeping a few here and there, just for the memories. I don't know. I get a feeling that, as soon as I start going through them, I won't want to give up any... I have to trim back though, too much stuff, hard to breath!

 

 

I'll take any of 'em no one else has dibs on, and will pay shipping and throw you a few extra bucks for your time and trouble. Maybe it's the hoarder in me, but I can't stand seeing stuff like that get pitched.

[nathanallan]

Hopefully none of it has to get pitched, if you can't get anyone to take them and give them a good home check the local community college, see if they'd be interested in having them. If not, it might be good for a student that sees that they are there. Better than a recycling bin.

[AtariLeaf]

I'd love to find some old Rainbow magazines - these were the official magazine for the Tandy Color Computer.

 

Me too! There was other more obscure CoCo magazines as well. My brother's friend had a whole set of Color Computer Magazine, which included a pretty cool Star Trek game. I've never been able to find them online digitized anywhere...

 

Adamantyr

 

There are some coco magazine pdf's here

Not sure how many work but there are some color computer magazine ones in there too.

[matthew180]

I started making a list last night, I'll see how much I can get done today. Of course I got stuck looking through some of them, and of course it started to slow me down... It is amazing how much of the information is still relevant, and issues people were talking about 20 years ago are *still* being talked about! I read a few articles about computers in school and education reform. Sound familiar? The editor of PC Magazine was saying "it is ok to teach kids programming..."

 

I also found out that Google is including magazines in their "scan the world" effort. That's cool. They don't have a ton of magazines yet (90 I think), but they are getting there. They do have InfoWorld that goes quite a ways back, and hopefully they will have more computer magazines as time goes on.

[GratedTopping]

I have lots of early "Compute!"'s in good shape; a few of the "Compute!'s Gazette" magazines (but most disks of programs from them); very old "Byte"'s; lots of various Amiga-related mags from the U.S. and UK; and a few years ago I got 30 or so brand-new looking issues of "Ahoy" for the Commodore 64. I think that was one of the coolest mags and made me want a C64 (which I eventually got). That magazine was chock-full of games in each issue.

 

I remember having all of those old "Enter" magazine (I lost the majority of them) and later on, "Enter" folded mostly -- it got a new section in "3-2-1 Contact" magazine of 12 or so pages, I think. Anybody remember when they merged?

 

I know I have at least one "Rainbow" mag; I used to buy some issues of non TI-magazines, knowing that there was a program in them that I thought I could easily convert to TI.

 

Oh....and I still have all the "99'er" magazines & "Home Computer Magazine" issues. Just a few "Family Computing" mags, too, and some special program compilations from FC.

 

I loved computin' from the mags!!

[+OLD CS1]

I pulled a bunch of COMPUTE! magazines out of storage recently. I lament that I did not take better care of them. They are readable and mostly intact, but very worn with torn pages, a few missing covers, etc. These are records of our history, at least mine as a child of the 80s. I find it interesting to read about the five technologies which will change my life, such as CD-ROMs and LCD screens (including the possibility for color in the very near future.) I also now understand why so little technological "advances" today really excite me -- because, as a better song writer than I has said, "It's all been done before." And if not all I can think is, about damned time.

 

I would love to have a very good condition collection of COMPUTE! magazine, Ahoy, 99er, Enter, Gazette, etc. for my children to read (yeah yeah, they can read them online, blah... it simply is not the same as having the real thing in your hands.)* ESPECIALLY the programs. There is great value in understanding how we eagerly anticipated the once-a-month delivery which would include some great program for us to type in, and the excitement involved in running such a program. Quite a bit different than going to a website and copying-and-pasting, at our leisure and convenience. I think some of the magic gets lost there, but perhaps a new magic is discovered.

 

* said best, I believe, by Patrick Stewart's line as Jean Luc Picard in "Star Trek: First Contact," when he says to Data, "For humans, touch can connect you to an object in a very personal way, make it seem more real."

Edited February 20, 2011 by OLD CS1