The Goodbye Letter: Compute!'s Gazette 1995

Gazette masthead, recreated by David Henderson

 While falling down the rabbit hole that is nostalgia-induced Internet diving, I came across an archive of every issue of COMPUTE!'s Gazette ever published. I read through the very first issue. It brought back a flood of memories from my childhood - the ads, the "new" technology, the type-in programs. 

I skimmed through a few other issues before jumping down to the FINAL issue ever produced. The magazine ran from 1983 through 1995. The last set of issues were fully disk-based. And on that lest Gazette disk, I found a heartfelt letter that announced the end of the magazine's publication.

I am posting it here for your perusal and for posterity. 

 Gazette, February 1995

64/128 VIEW: Time to Say Goodbye

By Tom Netsel

In July of 1983, a new magazine devoted to the Commodore VIC--20 and the Commodore 64 hit the newsstands. Founded by Robert Lock and edited by Thomas Half hill, that magazine was called COMPUTE!’s Gazette. After almost 12 years, numerous editors, and several changes in format, Gazette ceases publication with this issue. This is the last Gazette. 

When Gazette started, Commodore was selling more than 100,000 VIC-20s and 64s each month. Dozens of software suppliers were rushing products to this rapidly growing market. The initial press run for Gazette was 175,000 copies, up from an originally planned 75,000. And all this was at a time before the 64 itself really took off to become the most popular home computer ever built, selling more than 14 million worldwide.

If you look back at that first issue, you'll notice that Fred D'Ignazio had a column that was called "Computing for Kids." Jim Butterfield’s name appeared on the masthead as an associate editor. You'll find their final columns in this issue.

Larry Cotton is another long time contributor. His "Beginner BASIC" column has been a regular feature for many years.

A few years ago, I was looking for someone to write a GEOS column. It had been an on and off feature in Gazette, but readership surveys told me that there was considerable interest in this operating system from Berkeley Softworks. I went searching for someone to write a monthly column. I'll have to thank Robert Nellist for recommending Steve Vander Ark for the job. Robert and Steve had been corresponding for some time about GEOS, and he suggested I get in touch with Steve. I did and Steve agreed to supply Gazette with a column each month.

Sometime later, I wanted a column to pay tribute to the great work being done by programmers who offered their work as public domain. Steve volunteered to do it and added "PD Picks" to his busy schedule. It was about that time that Robert wrote me a letter complaining in a good natured fashion that while Gazette had gained a columnist in Steve, Robert had lost a pen pal.

The junior member of the Gazette columnists is David Pankhursto The author of fantastic spreadsheets, Calc and Calc II, David took over the reins of "Programmer's Page" a little more than a year ago. Each month he has supplied a number of good programming tips from his own library and from those submitted by our readers.

I'd like to thank all these gentlemen for their great contributions to Gazette, without their help, this magazine couldn't have lasted a fraction of the time it did.

Last, but by no means least, I want to thank all of you readers who have submitted programs to Gazette over the years. My biggest regret is that I still have so many good programs here that I'll never be able to publish. My budget allowed me to buy only so many each month and I still have almost 30 submissions still in my Pending basket. Gazette had a number of staff programmers in its early days, but it has been our readers who have supplied the bulk of the programs that we've published over the years. To all of you who have submitted a program, I offer you my thanks. Without your submissions, this magazine would have folded years ago.

Gazette's closing follows shortly on the heels of COMPUTE's demise, but it is for totally different reasons. COMPUTE was bought and closed because a competitor didn't want the competition and was hoping to convert those subscribers to its publications. Gazette is closing simply because there aren't enough Commodore enthusiasts subscribing to make Gazette profitable.

So what's going to happen to your subscriptions? You'll have one of three options, but as I write this the week before Christmas, I don't know all the details as yet„ We are talking with other publishing companies that may have an interest in taking on our outstanding subscriber liability. If one of these companies takes over, then you will be offered a Commodore-related publication equal in value to the number of Gazette issues yet unmailed.

The other option is that you may elect to take the remainder of your subscription out in Gazette disk products. The specialty disks that we offer, such as SpeedScript and the GEOS Collection, are examples.

The final option is to simply request a refund of the remainder of your subscription. Each unmailed issue is worth approximately $2.50. 

As I said, negotiations have just started and I don't know what the outcome will be. You will be contacted shortly with an explanation of your options. I'm sure some of you will be getting letters asking you to renew your Gazette subscriptions. These mailings are scheduled months in advance and some undoubtedly will be mailed out after I write this. Please ignore them.

Normally, publications close and readers learn about it after the fact. With Gazette being on dii»k and having a short production time, I was able to convince the powers that be to give me this final issue in order to say good. bye. As I said, I don't yet have all the answers but I was at least able to offer some word of explanation as to why you won't be getting any more Gazette's after this one.

COMPUTE Publications will still be around, but involved with online publishing. COMPUTE Online has been on America Online for 18 months and it will continue, but with a new name. Starting in February, it will be called I-Wire. It will also be on the Internet with a world wide web home page. I have been the online editor during this time and I will continue with my duties there and as editor of Saturday Review Online.

Once again, thank you for your support over the years. Keep those 64s and 128s humming. It's been a pleasure. 

Gazette, February 1995

Lords of Conquest - A Commodore 64 Risk Like Game

Every now and then, my brain tries to think of the name of a game I used to play with my friends. I can describe it perfectly, but the actual name escapes me.

The game is laid out on a grid with very rudimentary landforms. It plays basically like Risk, where players take turns trying to attack/defend other players from taking over their land. It also has a cool feature where you can actually build your own maps!

I search and search on Google, trying to come up with the right phrasing that will expose the game and its long-forgotten name. Alas, one day, I am searching for "Commodore 64 risk like game" and nothing is coming up other than Risk or other like games but not the one I am seeking. I flip over to the image results to see if anything stands out. A few screens down, and there it is!

Unfortunately, the link to the image's hosting page leads to some weird Instagram curation page and the image above is nowhere to be found in the mess of images.

So, I save the image and do a reverse image search. Basically, you go to images.google.com and click the little camera icon to upload a picture. Google then tries to find your image compared to the rest of the internet. BINGO!

The game, as it turns out, is called "Lords of Conquest." Now, I have to say, I do not believe that is the name of the game I played. I am almost certain the game I played had to be loaded with the command:

LOAD"DELUXE",8,1

But, that doesn't matter! I finally found what I was looking for. Not only that, but I found a d64 disk image and fired it up on a C64 emulator (I didn't have easy access to my breadbin Ultimate 64 Elite at the time).

And there it is! The game plays like an overly complicated version of Risk. Players get resources (gold, iron, horses, weapons, etc) and they can use those resources to help with attacks and defenses.

The C64 Wiki has a great write-up on the game, so I will spare you the details.

The main reason I am posting this is so that in the future when I forget the name of this game, I can search my blog and find comfort in knowing the great mystery had been solved.

Forgotten Realms: Angelica, Remembered #gaming

Note:The following article was originally published in April 2017 on my website davidinark.com. The link to that is at the bottom of this one.

While poking around online, I discovered that I was late to a very cool party. It seems that Good Old Games managed to hunt down and secure the licensing rights to the classic “Gold Box” games from SSI built around the Dungeons and Dragons world. Now, to many of you, this means nothing. To me, however, this ushered in a surge of memories from my youth.

I played the “Pool of Radiance” series (as I called it) on my Commodore 64 from the time the Gold Box Series came out until well into my college years. Holy smokes. Stopping to think about that, I just realized I played that series starting in 1988 (freshman year) up until a couple years after my wife and I got married. We married in 1991, but I played the game at least until 1993 or later.

I loved the game. It was based on REAL D&D rules, regs, characters, stats… It combined two of my favorite things: computers and D&D. When I got the game in 1998, I fired up the game and began creating my characters and building a party. The first character I created was a female fighter. She was awesome from the very start. She had pixelated flowing blonde hair, was a tough character through stats, and became the undisputed leader of the party. I named her Angelica. She led battles, did most of the speaking for the group when put into such situations, and remained throughout the entire series – though others had not.

I have to admit, the temptation to resurrect Angelica from the depths of memory and plop her down at the beginning of a new tale, a new adventure, excites the nostalgic kid in me like you would not believe. Thanks to Good Old Games, I could do just that. They took the games, reworked them a bit, and created virtual DOS machines in which to run them. Oh, to fire up the games again and create a new band of adventurers in all that 8- or 16-bit glory…

Alas, it is not meant to be. You see, if I do buy the revamped games, I don’t think I could bring myself to create a new lead female character bearing the name and likeness of the one I had grown so fond of, the one who survived each of the games into which we could move our characters, allowing them to keep growing as new challenges arose from the disks contained inside those gold box games.

No. You see, sometimes you play with a certain character in a game series so long that when the time comes for that character to rest (she never died, the series just ran out and time moved on and I eventually got rid of all my Commodore 64 stuff), you let the character rest. Creating another wouldn’t be the same. And, if the replacement didn’t live up to the same level as the original, then the memory of the first is forever tarnished.

Angelica lives in my heart and memory the way she was: a strong, fierce, pixelated beauty.

Get the games here: https://www.gog.com/game/forgotten_realms_the_archives_collection_two

Link to original article:
http://davidinark.com/2017/04/11/forgotten-realms-angelica-remembered-gaming/

Welcome to 2012

Happy New Year!

First, a look back and then a look ahead.

On January 9 (just a few days away), Commodore revealed the Commodore 64.  The computer cost $299, which was not horrid back then, but not exactly peanuts either.  The real downside was that EVERYTHING was extra - floppy storage was another $179 for the original 1541, if you could find one.  Most folks started off with the $99 tape drive.  Yes, kiddos, before games came on DVDs (or there was anything remotely referred to as 'the cloud,'), we had games that were stored on cassette tapes.  Oh, wait. You might not even know what cassette tapes are.  Yeesh.  Before MP3s and CDs, we had these plastic cases with a think ribbon of 'tape' that held our music.  Well, the same technology to store music was used to store data.

Aside from the affection Mac owners are known to have for their computers, Commodore owners probably 'loved' their computers the most.  No other company (again, aside from Apple) garnered such admiration for a line of computers as Commodore.  Even today, you can ask people about their old '64s and watch as their eyes glaze over, their head tilts slightly to one side and their mind wanders back to a time of 8-bit wonders.

Some time ago, several years actually, several groups/companies came up with C64 emulators that would run on PCs.  Now, you could have all the nostalgia running in a window on your computer while you surfed the web, played other games, or did just about anything else you wanted to.  The entire C64 collection of games fits on a series of DVDs.

And then, Commodore was reignited and a new company brought forth a C64 clone.  The new machine is a PC running the emulator.  It also costs over 3x as much as the original, listing for $999 from CommodoreUSA.  No thanks.  Even if I bought the emulator and the DVD series, I'd still have change left over for my card hobby.  So it wouldn't LOOK like a C64. Who cares. I digress.

---

As for looking ahead, I managed a paltry 80 posts in 2011.  I posted more than that during my first year of blogging when I really had no idea what I was doing or why.  I am not a "resolutions" kind of person, but I absolutely resolve to post more in 2012.  What accounts for the lack of posts?  I'm ashamed to admit it, but Facebook and Twitter have become my main outlet streams.  That's not a bad thing, really, but I am a huge proponent of blogging, especially in education, and so I need to champion that which I, er, champion.

Of course, the first round of solid postings will come from the annual "American Idol" rundown.  I also plan to post some of my more in-depth musings on here and let those take on a life of their own here and in the social networking realms.  For instance, my thoughts on public breastfeeding sparked quite a conversation on Facebook.  It would have been fun to start that here and then follow it in both circles, possibly cross-posting back here as to additional comments, etc.

I have been putting off two novels as well.  I don't mean reading them - I mean writing them.  So, the next "resolution" on my list: Write 'em.  I've actually decided that "Summer Breaks" will become a larger version of itself to be entitled, "Extended Summer Breaks."  It will be cleaned up and several elements expanded based on feedback I've received from friends and reviews.  The other novel, "Somewhere Main and Maple Meet," is already 2/3rds complete in first draft, so I'm looking to finish it up and get it published as well.  In fact, I plan to shop that one through Christian publishing circles to see if I can get a tradition publisher to pick it up.  I'll keep you posted.

My final "real" resolution relates to my bucket list.  I am picking one item to cross off the list and will focus my attention throughout the year to make it happen.  Not sure which item yet, but once I choose, that will be the one I try to knock off.

Thanks to everyone who comes by to read my ramblings and musings, and I hope to provide you much more entertainment in 2012 than in 2011.

Castle Wolfenstein

I am a child of the 60's.  Not the 1960's, though I was born in 1969, but rather, I am a child of the Commodore 64 era.  Pictured above is the first game I can remember playing that had anything to do with World War II.  The player is the green guy.  The SS guards walked around and the player had to use stealth and timing to open up the golden chests to collect various items.  The zig-zag grid on the right is a set of stairs. 

I actually believe I played the Apple-II version before playing the C-64 one.  For some reason, I remember the game having different graphics, simpler ones if you can believe it.

The sequel to this game was "Beyond Castle Wolfenstein," and I played it all the way through (as I did the first one).  It basically played the same way, if memory serves.

From there, we move to the first 3d 1st person shooter - Affectionately known as "Wolf3d" because that was the file name you used in order to play.  I know I've talked about it before, but I remember first seeing the game in a Sears store.  It was the demo.  This was back in the days of dial-up and floppy disks.  In fact, the kid playing the game made me a copy to take home.  This was a newly developed method of distribution called "Shareware."  You could play a demo (limited) version of a game for free, downloadable on the bulletin boards.  What got me hooked, though, was the fact that it looked 3D!  All I saw was the tip of the gun and the world in front of and around me.  Similar to this:

Eventually, graphics got better, worlds more realistic, gameplay more intense in a game called "Return to Castle Wolfenstein:"

If I remember correctly, this was one of the first 3d shooters my Dad ever played.  He was hooked.  I tried to show him the 'historical' version of Wolf3d (and even Duke3d), but he would have none of that. I still have a copy of this floating around somewhere. I may need to break it out of its shell and fire it up again.

What made me think of all this?  Well, being home sick from work while watching various WWII historical documentaries probably had a lot to do with it.  I watched a show called "Patton 360" along with several other shows on this Veteran's Day, and eventually fired up "Battlefield 1942" for a little Nazi-killing.

The Wolfenstein series is based on fictional experiments that Hitler and his upper echelon were conducting.  Hitler and the Nazis were such a definitive enemy that many, many games have been built around eliminating them.  In fact, there are libraries of games based on WWII - so many, in fact, that at one time there was an outcry for game developers to STOP making them.

As I get older, I am drawn more and more to the desire to role-play the scenarios and battles that so many people lived and gave up their lives.  I don't mean that as anything suggesting a trivialization of the lives lost or what veterans went through during those battles.  In fact, I am seeking just the opposite.  I am not a vet, instead growing up at a time when I was free (because of the sacrifices of those who came before me) to go to college instead of being required to enlist.  Now that I am passed the age of being able to serve, I love to learn more and more about those who DID serve, those who DO serve.  And reliving those battles gives me a sense of connection to a time and place that I would not have otherwise.  Even watching the documentaries on TV is not the same as taking on the role of some of the personnel in the midst of those scenarios.

I am so grateful for the men and women who dedicate their lives, or have given their lives, so that we may enjoy the life we have in these United States.  Though I did not mean for this post to take on a message for Veteran's Day, there is really no way that it could not have.  I am free because others paid a price which I will never be able to pay back, and I am forever indebted to our armed forces.  Thank you from the deepest part of my heart.

Time Travel

What you see above is one of the coolest things I have ever seen done with a Commodore 64. Yes, you remember those, right? Well, if you grew up in and around the 80's, you probably do. Well, Ben took a Commodore 64 (technically it's a C-64C) and built a custom-made laptop out of it with an LCD screen. The whole story is here. And, I have to say, it is a stroke of genius and beauty as a kid who not only owned a Commodore 64, but who grew up and got into the technology field because of it. At one point, I even had a 'custom' Commodore 64 that I labeled the "XTC" because it was housed in an old IBM-XT case. It was ugly. Ben's finished project is a true testament to the computer that changed 'personal computing' in the 80's. Oh, I know, a lot of folks say it was IBM and their "PC jr" that did it, but I say "nay-nay" (heh-heh). The C-64 made personal computing AFFORDABLE in the 80's.

The influence of that computer is so great that Nintendo recently announced that the Commodore 64 will be available for download on the Wii's virtual console. Frankly, I'm puzzled by that whole thing, but hey if it brings a new generation of kids along for the ride, why not? Of course, I'm sure it's aimed at the parents who had a Commodore as a kid. that, of course begs the question: Why not just go to www.c64.com and download nearly everything made for the Commodore 64 on your own computer? I don't have an answer for that. Frankly, I'd rather play C64 on my PC than on my Wii...

Now, I have also seen people go in the OPPOSITE direction:

What you see above is a Commodore 64 that is now a modern-day PC. The guts were stripped out, and a very small system board (called mini-itx) was used on the inside, along with a CD drive and more. So, here is a computer you could use right now, running Windows XP, dressed up in a Commodore 64 casing. Brilliant!

Amazingly, people are still very interested in what the Commodore 64 could do in the past, and what it can still do today. While poking around for material to be included in this post, I came across a live web server being hosted ON a working Commodore 64 computer:


The web site has an entry page (found here) that lets you know if the C-64 is up and running at the time. But, once you're in, you are sitting on a website hosted on a Commodore 64 that first showed up in 1982! I find that remarkable, and an enduring testament to just how well the main units were put together.

Now, i did say "main units" here. Having owned several Commodore 64's throughout my younger days, I can attest to the horrid power supplies those things came with. in fact, at one point (this is when I was living in Virginia), I hunted down a company that manufactured power supplies for the C-64 and bought two on the spot. One of those ended up in my custom XTC in fact. And, if you read the laptop article, you'll notice Ben opts for a GameCube power supply himself. That says a lot right there!

The original computer ran at 1Mhz. that's 1 Megahertz. A Megahertz is the number of cycles per second a computer can perform tasks. By comparison, today's mini netbooks (like the EeePC) run at approximately 2.2 Ghz (that GIGAhertz). Most 'regular' computers these days run at 3+ Ghz and often sport more than one processor handling things. But, for the sake of argument, let's stick with the 2.2Ghz EeePC. This little laptop is 2.2 THOUSAND TIMES faster than the Commodore 64 was!


I also came across the Jac64 project, which lets you play certain Commodore 64 games in your web browser! Holy Crap! Here is the list of games. What's great about this project? You don't have to download anything special, other than Java! And, most folks have Java anyway, so there ya go! The controls can be alittle hard to get used to, but I had a blast playing the old "Lode Runner" game for a bit (once I figured out how to move!).

What's cool about the emulators today is that most of them allow you to bump the speed of the C-64 up to hundreds of times faster than the original. An emulator is a program that 'pretends' (hence, emulates) to be the original device. I've talked about this before somewhat in relation to my own kids 'discovering' certain games and programs that were out on the Commodore 64, but still create enjoyable playtime (such as "Little Computer People" and "M.U.L.E.") today. Frankly, no one wants to wait while the slow Commodore loads up a game - heck we didn't even want to wait back then! So, like I said, most emulators let you speed things up (and then slow then back down, too).

So, if you're feeling a bit nostalgic, check out the links I posted and each of those sites will lead you further down the road to checking out what serves as the foundation for many of the computer geeks, er gurus, you know and love today...

Little Computer People

Back in the mid-80's, I owned a Commodore 64 and one of my favorite programs was Little Computer People by Activision. It was, by all accounts I know of, the first computerized 'pet' or 'people sim' in the United States. Basically, we're talking the grand-daddy to modern-day games like 'The Sims.'

A frequently sought piece of information is the list of working commands for the Little Computer Person.... Here is a list:

DO YOU LIKE ENJOY PLEASE WILL WOULD PLAY PERFORM USE TRY ALLERGY ALLERGIC FEVER DUST POLLEN HANKY RELAX LIGHT START MAKE BURN IGNITE LOOKS IS SEEMS APPEARS SEEM LOOK APPEAR HEAR LISTEN PUT START SPIN ON CLEAN TIDY PICK UP SLOPPY MESSY UNTIDY SHOULD OUGHT LOGON PROGRAM UTILITIES MATH HOMEWORK ADD SUBTRACT MULTIPLY DIVIDE TICKLE TYPE TELL WRITE CONFIDE BRUSH FLOSS DRINK IMBIBE GET FEED FILL OPEN DANCE MOON SHOW LIKE TIRED BORED APATHETIC HATE APATHETIC AWFUL PLAYING IF WHAT WHAT'S IN INSIDE STORED KEEP IS PIANO STEREO TURNTABLE MUSIC RECORD PLATTER FIRE FIREPLACE LOG CHILLY COLD PROBLEM PROBLEMS TROUBLES MATTER LETTER NOTE SONG TUNE SONATA FUGUE SERENADE JAZZ BOOGIE IVORIES TEETH HYGIENE GLASS COOLER DOG PET MUTT POOCH BOWL DISH CAN TV CHAIR COMPUTER COMMODORE WATER LIQUID LIQUIDS FLUID FLUIDS UPSTAIRS BEDROOM CLOSET KITCHEN FILING CABINET FREEZER REFRIGERATOR FRIDGE DRESSER NIGHTSTAND ADDITION SUBTRACTION MULTIPLICATION DIVISION HOUSE HOME GAME CARDS POKER WAR CARD ANAGRAMS HANGMAN EXCUSE PARDON HELLO ATTENTION HEY

If you know of other words that work, let me know..