Giant Retro Magazine Collection

So, so many magazines

I love magazines and frequently write about my retro magazine collection here. I thought it is time to list out all the various retro magazines I have for posterity and offer my brief thoughts on each of them, in no specific order.

Atari Magazines

I find it amazing that, for such a small overall community at the time, there are so many different Atari magazines.

ANALOG Computing

ANALOG Computing was and still is a favorite of mine. I absolutely loved getting a new issue in the mail and spending an afternoon reading it and spending the rest of the month typing in programs on my 800XL. I’ve read and re-read every issue multiple times now and today I have a complete collection, including the ANALOG Compendium.

My complete ANALOG collection

Antic

I also liked Antic a lot, but it was always behind ANALOG for me. I found their articles and reviews to be not quite as good. I have a large Antic collection today, although it is not yet complete. I’m still missing some issues in Volume 1 and a few others throughout the years, perhaps about 8 in total.

I’ll be writing about Antic here at some point.

STart

STart was the ST magazine produced by the folks that did Antic. This is my favorite ST magazine. The name stands for ST quarterly, which is how it started, but it quickly added issues until becoming monthly.

STart always came with a companion disk, which was really necessary because ST programs were much larger and really could not be typed in like their 8-bit counterparts.

I have not yet written about STart, but I do have a complete collection and a fair amount of disks as well.

ST Log

ST Log debuted as a magazine within ANALOG and eventually split out into its own magazine. Early issues of ST Log, once it split from ANALOG, are exceptional. I do feel they wasted pages printing program listings that no one in their right mind would try to type in, though.

I have a complete collection of ST Log.

Current Notes

Current Notes started out as a user group newsletter, but grew over the years to become a full-fledged magazine. It mostly consisted of editorial content and reviews and did not really publish programs, although they did have a “Small Miracles” column with short code 8-bit demos for a while and they also offered public domain disks.

In 1994/1995 I was the ST Editor for Current Notes up until it was shut down by publisher Joe Waters. It did re-emerge with a different publisher later in 1995, but I was not involved with that and I’m not exactly sure how long that lasted.

I don’t have a complete Current Notes collection, but I have a lot of issues.

Compute’s Atari ST Disk and Magazine

A good magazine with a bad name. Produced by Compute! starting in 1986 when it looked like the ST would be the next big home computer. This was like STart in that it came with a disk, but it was published bi-monthly.

It had some good programs on disk, for the time. I have an almost complete collection.

ST Informer

The original newsprint magazine, early versions of ST Informer actually looked like a newspaper. Sadly that means that most did not survive as that type of paper does not age well. Later issues still used newsprint (with increasing quality), but went to a magazine size.

I do have several Issues and like this magazine, which focused on news, editorial and reviews, plus they also had a public domain disk.

Atari Explorer

When the Tramiels announced the new computer lineup at the January 1985 CES, they also introduced Atari Explorer as the new official magazine, replacing the erratic Atari Connection magazine.

The early issues were definitely rather biased and not great, but when David Ahl (of Creative Computing) took over the publication in 1986, Atari Explorer became great.

Sadly there was a falling out with Atari and issues after Ahl stopped publishing were not nearly as good.

I have a solid collection of Atari Explorer, but I am missing several issues.

Michigan Atari Magazine

Like Current Notes, this was originally a user group newsletter that grew to a magazine. It’s not bad and I have perhaps a dozen issues.

Atari Interface Magazine

After a kerfuffle with Michigan user group CHAOS, Michigan Atari Magazine renamed to Atari Interface Magazine and continue on for many more years. I always liked this magazine and have a dozen or more issues of it as well. In many ways it ended up being similar to Current Notes.

Atari Age

There have been quite a few Atari magazines called “Atari Age”. The first was from Atari and focused on the video game consoles. The one I am talking about here was started by John Nagy (who also originally published Michigan Atari Magazine and was involved in Z*Net, CHAOS and GLAD) and lasted a few years in the early 90s.

This was a magazine printed on newsprint to keep costs low and was offered for free to user groups. I liked it and have a few issues.

I believe there is also a more modern Atari Age magazine, plus of course the popular Atari Age site that is now owned by Atari.

Atari Advantage

Another newsprint magazine, I always found this one very similar to Atari Age and I often confuse the two. I only have a handful of issues.

Atari Computing

This magazine from Europe is one of the last Atari magazines, with its last issues from 1999. I was out of the Atari world by this point so it often talks about software and hardware that I never used. I liked hearing about this “new” stuff in the Atari ST community, though.

I have a a few issues, plus the CD archive of many more.

ST World

Yet another newsprint magazine, I only have a handful of issues. I found this magazine to be rather rough and it apparently it had some controversies surrounding it that I’m not entirely familiar with.

ST Applications

This is a US magazine that I picked up on eBay and had not seen before. I believe there was also a European ST Applications.

I need to write about this one.

Hi-Res

A short-lived magazine from Canada from about 1984. It didn’t last long and I only have a couple issues. The most notable thing about it for me is that there is a review of the Action! programming language by Leo Laporte, the TWIT.tv podcaster.

Atari Connection

Irregularly Published by the Warner Atari, this magazine was mostly fluff and I didn’t really care for it. I have a few issues, though.

Processor Direct

I have one issue of this Atari ST magazine that debuted in 1995 in tabloid-size. I’m not sure if there were other issues.

Atari Newsletters

GLAD

I recently wrote about the Great Lakes Atari Digest and its Volume 1 and Volume 2 issues.

ACE

The Atari Computer Enthusiasts of Oregon were one of the first Atari groups and also had one of the first newsletters. I have two collections of their newsletters.

HACE

I have a single newsletter from the Houston Atari Computer Enthusiasts. Like most newsletters of the time, it is simply printed/copied on 8.5”x11” paper and stapled together. I expect there were lot of these sorts of things from various user groups.

Computer Agnostic Magazines

Compute!

We had a subscription to Compute! in the 80s and it was the primary way I was exposed to other computers. I always liked their program listings that often had versions for lots of different computers. I was fun to compare them and see how the graphics differed.

I have a nice collection of Compute! today, but certainly have more I’d like to acquire.

Byte

I have a good-sized collection of Byte magazines, even though they barely covered anything Atari related. Clearly the March 1986 issue, with the 1040ST on the cover, is my favorite. As a technical journal, its articles were in-depth and often over my head in the 80s. I do like reading them now, though.

Creative Computing

Another multi-platform magazine, this had a lot of Atari content in its early days. I have a large collection of Creative Computing, which folded at the end of 1985, and was pleased that David Ahl and company moved on to produce Atari Explorer with the same high quality.

Family Computing

Another multi-format magazine, this one was geared more towards kids and those new to computing. Their programs and articles were often rather simple. I have a few issues, but don’t plan to try to find more.

Computer Shopper

More of a catalog of advertising that an actual magazine, its issues could run several hundred pages. I have a single issue of Computer Shopper, June 1988 (530 pages). It’s Atari-focused, of course, with an Atari Mega ST 4 and laser printer on the cover. This is in the queue to write about.

Commodore Magazines

I’ve also picked up some Commodore magazines throughout the years as I do like reading about Atari’s competition.

Compute!’s Gazette

This was Compute!’s magazine for Commodore 8-bit compute users. I picked these up a few years ago on eBay to get a feel for the “dark side”. I haven’t read through all the ones I have yet, but they should prove useful as I play with my newly acquired Commodore 128.

Amiga World

I also have some Amiga World magazine I picked up on eBay to learn more about the ST’s big rival. I’ve never used an Amiga, so most of what is covered doesn’t make much sense to me, but these were a fun read.

Other Magazines

The above are the magazines that I actually own, but there are many other Atari and retro magazines out there. Sadly, I used to have some of them such as ST Format, ST Review, ST Action!, ST User, Page 6 and ST Applications from Europe and ST-XPress in the US. Sadly due to some unfortunately events, those were lost.

I often scour eBay for magazines, but they are not always easy to find and people seem to often want way too much money for them. I’m certainly not paying $20 an issue (unless it might help me complete a set), but I’ve been known to pay up to $5 an issue in bulk.

Breaking News!! I recently acquired a big collection (56 pounds!) of Atari stuff from Canada and it includes many Atari magazines that I am missing. Some include ST Format, ST Applications, ST User, Reset, ST-XPress, FaSTer and some Compute! and Current Notes issues I was missing. Plus this collection includes a ton of ST software and other things.

If any readers had retro magazine they’d like to donate (or sell), please get in touch.

As you can see by the links scattered throughout this post (be sure to click them as they link to other articles here on Goto 10), I do love magazines and writing about them. It’s sad to me that today magazines are few and far between, although hopefully newsletters such as Goto 10 can serve as a small substitute.

Speaking of which, you can view the Magazine category to see all the magazine-related articles I’ve written, although you’ll need a paid subscription to read most of them.

A paid subscription is inexpensive, though, and certainly costs a lot less than multiple magazine subscriptions would have cost back in the day so perhaps you’ll consider it.

And of course, although most of the magazine I’ve mentioned above are available on the internet and often at the Internet Archive, it’s much more fun to read the actual magazines than it is to read a PDF on the computer!

What were your favorite retro magazines? Do you still have copies of them? Did I miss any?