Explore the golden age of home computing with Compute!'s Gazette. Dive into archives of classic articles, game listings, and programming tutorials from the legendary magazine. Relive the 8-bit era and…
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Iirc the “gazette” version of Compute! Was focused on Commodore machines, whereas Compute was a polyglot of several popular US machines. Theses magazines were a lifeline to a lot of us in the 80’s pre internet. It reminds me how amazing this age is, with regard to freely available information.
By pryelluw 2025-04-1316:50 Not only information access but the distribution model. In middle school, I had a little side business selling shareware on diskettes. My school had gotten brand spanking new 386/486 machines. My older brother had copied a bunch of games and programs from his friends into a stack of diskettes. I was king and made some good cash. Enough to buy a bike.
I miss physical media.
By massysett 2025-04-1317:14 Yes, Gazette was published as a standalone magazine, as COMPUTE’s Gazette. Later, it was published as a supplement to COMPUTE, the main COMPUTE had some Gazette pages printed in the back or something.
I subscribed for at least a few years. I did the type-in programs. I think I got the BASIC ones to work but I never got one of the assembly language ones working. Understandably topping them in did not forgive errors, though each line of assembly came with a checksum, this didn’t save me.
And typing them was mind-numbing besides.
By robterrell 2025-04-1315:142 reply I worked for Compute! magazine when I was in high school (an excellent job, porting games for one PC to another) and so maybe it's just a me thing, but it seems weird to name this "Compute's Gazette" when there's no connection to the original magazine, besides fandom.
Compute! had a fork? of a magazine specifically for Commodore Computers called 'Compute! Gazette' https://archive.org/details/compute-gazette I spent many of days in my youth typing in the pages of code they included at the end of every issue.
By robterrell 2025-04-140:20 Yeah, I get that this is a re-creation of an existing title focused on C64 (also published out of the same office as the one I worked in). What's odd to me is that there's no connection to the original magazine -- no IP rights acquired, none of the old writers or editors involved, just name-squatting on something people feel nostalgia for. But maybe it'll be great.
By robterrell 2025-04-1317:101 reply TI-99/4a was the worst for me, but I think the entire reason I was hired was that everyone else hated porting to the Apple //.
By DidYaWipe 2025-04-1319:20 Undoubtedly because the Apple II's graphics and sound sucked royally.
By empressplay 2025-04-1315:092 reply I can't find any evidence that they've acquired or licensed the name / trademarks from Ziff Davis, the last known holder of Compute's IP, so I would be wary of giving them any money.
Also the content gives off strong AI vibes
By jnagle78641 2025-04-1317:041 reply I registered the trademark through USPTO, you can verify it there. There is some AI involved right now, but not for anything content related.
Fwiw, I didn’t find the ai images problematic at all, and the writing doesn’t seem generated at all to me.
I like the switch drm writeup, but wonder if they’re just moving pirates towards downloading from the store + dumping the bits.
By jnagle78641 2025-04-140:38 Thanks! I originally was going to go a completely different direction with the Switch writeup. By the time I finished the write up I had to acknowledge what a smart move that was for Nintendo. I just hope devs use the opportunity to bring back some more physical "stuff" with their offerings.
I want it to be true. There's really not much information out there on it or the CEO that I can find.
My first question was if there's was enough retro material for a monthly.
By jnagle78641 2025-04-1317:012 reply Edwin Nagle here. I believe there's definitely enough material to support a monthly, especially with a focus on the general retro community rather than solely on C64/128.
By svec 2025-04-142:42 Who are the authors for the content of the first month's issue? The articles on the site don't list an author, which makes me think it's all written by Edwin Nagle, which makes me wonder if anyone else will contribute to the monthly issues.
I agree with that.
Why GAZETTE rather than just COMPUTE! ?
Big fan of the project here BTW.
By jnagle78641 2025-04-140:361 reply Thanks! I originally was going to just call it Compute but I resonated more with Compute!'s Gazette from my own personal experience and it's going to be all brand new content anyway. Plus, I like the idea of a "gazette" and it just seemed to fit. Personal preference I guess.
By ddingus 2025-04-1519:56 That makes sense. No judgement here, just me wondering.
