Cover of the August 1987 issue of Compute!
Compute! was a multiformat magazine that covered a variety of popular machines. It was one of the better magazines in this category, especially if you wanted something more home computer oriented and a little less technical than Byte. The August 1987 issue includes:
Features
- Compute!'s Readership Survey - A survey for readers that asks questions like what kind of computer you use, what kind of applications, etc. This was used in part to determine coverage in future issues.
- CES and COMDEX: A Tale of Two Cities - Comparing the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago with COMDEX in Atlanta. Both were big shows for electronics and computer software and hardware.
Reviews
- Bank Street Writer Plus - A word processor for the Apple II line and the IBM PC.
- Might and Magic - The classic fantasy RPG reviewed here for the Apple II.
- Space M+A+X - A simulation in which you must make money operating a space station for the IBM PC.
Table of Contents from the August 1987 issue of Compute!
Columns and Departments
- The Editor's Note - Recent advancements in superconductivity and its implications for computing.
- Readers' Feedback - Readers write in about the future of 5.25" disks, checking the CAPS key on the Atari 130XE, the importance of saving a typed-in program before running it, upgrading an Amiga CPU, and more.
- Computers and Society: The Next Gutenberg Revolution - Desktop publishing becomes more affordable with the introduction of Atari's laser printer for the ST.
- The World Inside the Computer: Robert Evans Meets the Xerox 4020 - A look at a new printer from Xerox featuring ink jet technology.
- Microscope - A look at IBM's new PS/2 line (an their marketing), and some comparisons with the Atari ST and Amiga.
- Telecomputing Today: A Conversion Experience - Issues converting an old MacWrite disk to a new system with a utility download coming to the rescue.
The Journal
- 64 Eighty - A type-in program that will give you an 80-column display on the Commodore 64. A similar software trick was used in a terminal program I used back in the day. It's not as high quality as a genuine 80-column displays (the C64s native display is 40 columns) but it was pretty good.
- BASIC Batch Files with Atari DOS - How to execute BASIC commands (or other things) upon startup.
- Math Graphics for Atari ST - A couple of type-in graphics demos for the ST.
- Compress and Decompress - A couple of type-in utilities for compressing and decompressing high-res graphics files on the Apple II.
- Fractal Mountains for Amiga - A type-in program that will generate fractal graphics on the Amiga.
- Pop-Up ASCII Table for IBM - A type-in utility that runs in the background and will give you a pop-up ASCII table on a keypress.
- XpressCard Filing System for the Commodore 64 - A type-in database program for the C64.
- ML Relocator - A type-in machine language utility that will let you move ML programs around in memory that normally need to use the same memory space.
Back cover of the August 1987 issue of Compute!
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I don't know if I've ever read an issue of this magazine. But seeing the date on that issue brought me down to memory lane. I was computer science freshman student at the time, having shifted to it from computer engineering in another university I enrolled at a year prior.
ahh yes the old compute magazine, we use to sell them in our tobaco store in Amsterdam back in those days :)
Incredible! It should be an interesting reading and update in that period! Thanks for sharing 😃
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