Margot Comstock
Margot Comstock (formerly Margot Comstock Tommervik, – ) was co-founder and editor of ''Softalk'' magazine, which was influential in the Apple II community, as part of a growing Personal computer, personal computing movement. Career Comstock worked as a freelance textbook editor, magazine article writer, and journalist. She also enjoyed playing games, and in 1979 she won more than $15,000 on the television game show ''Password.'' She and her husband Allan Tommervik purchased an Apple II+ with some of the money''.'' She was enthusiastic about trying games and other software for the computer, along with its larger potential for helping people try new things. They decided to start a magazine for other Apple users, using the rest of the prize money and a second mortgage on their home. ''Softalk'' Comstock and Tommervik founded ''Softalk'' in 1980. They got in contact with a company called Softape that distributed Apple II software and had a newsletter, and they arranged to tak ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mark Pelczarski
Mark Pelczarski wrote and published some of the earliest digital multimedia computer software. In 1979 while teaching computer science at Northern Illinois University, he self-published Magic Paintbrush, which was one of the first digital paint programs for the Apple II, the first consumer computer that had color graphics capabilities. Pelczarski was hired as an editor at SoftSide magazine in 1980, but then left to start Penguin Software in 1981 to publish his optimistically-titled Complete Graphics System, which included digital imaging and 3D wireframe rendering. In the next year he co-wrote and published Special Effects and Graphics Magician with David Lubar, who was then writing for Creative Computing magazine. Special Effects produced digital effects with images and also contained one of the first uses of digital paintbrushes. Graphics Magician featured one of the first uses of vector graphics for image compression, as well as animation routines that made it easy for progra ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Penguin Software
Penguin Software was a computer software and video game publisher from Geneva, Illinois that produced graphics and application software and games for the Apple II, Mac (computer), Mac, IBM PC compatibles, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari 8-bit computers, and Atari ST. It produced the graphics programs Graphics Magician and Complete Graphics System, graphic adventure games such as the ''Transylvania'' series, action games like '' Spy's Demise'', and role-playing video games such as '' Xyphus''. History The company was founded in 1978 by Mark Pelczarski as "MP Software" with its first product, a graphics program called ''Magic Paintbrush''. It evolved to "Co-op Software" as part of a sister company, Micro Co-op, then adopted the name "Penguin Software" in 1981 when software publishing became the primary focus. Like many other home computer publishers at the time, Penguin Software openly credited the developers of their games on boxes and title screens; developers that were often not dir ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Softape
Softape was a software company that published video games, utilities, and productivity programs for the Apple II personal computers in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was co-founded by William V. R. Smith, Bill Depew and Gary Koffler. In 1980, the company's name was changed to Artsci, Inc. and they now operate as an internet service provider as well as publish literature on amateur radio. Softape's Software Exchange newsletter, ''Softalk'', was started in 1979 as a club newsletter, of which there were only two editions. Its success caused Softape to look for partners to handle a monthly format magazine. Margot Comstock and Al Tommervik joined the effort in 1980 and the new group re-designed it into the Apple II enthusiast magazine ''Softalk''. Software Softape published at least 20 games for the Apple II: {{cite web , url = http://www.dadgum.com/giantlist/ , title = The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers , accessdate = 2008-11-08 , last = Hague , ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Softdisk (disk Magazine)
''Softdisk'' (), originally ''Softdisk Magazette'', was a disk magazine for the Apple II computer line, published from 1981 through 1995. It was the first publication of the company that was also known as Softdisk, which would go on to publish disk magazines for other systems, other software, and later be involved in Internet access, hosting, and development. History The brainchild of Jim Mangham, who then worked at the LSU Medical Center in Shreveport, Louisiana, ''Softdisk'' (originally intended to be called ''The Harbinger Magazette'', but launched as ''Softdisk Magazette'', with "magazette" being a portmanteau word combining "magazine" and "diskette") was published out of Mangham's house, with his then-wife Judi Mangham, LSUMC co-worker Al Vekovius, and ''Softalk'' magazine (a paper magazine for the Apple) as partners in the venture. The first issue was published in September, 1981, and consisted of a single 5.25" floppy diskette which could be flipped over to get to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Magazine
A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally financed by advertising, newsagent's shop, purchase price, prepaid subscription business model, subscriptions, or by a combination of the three. They are categorised by their frequency of publication (i.e., as weeklies, monthlies, quarterlies, etc.), their target audiences (e.g., women's and trade magazines), their subjects of focus (e.g., popular science and religious), and their tones or approach (e.g., works of satire or humor). Appearance on the cover of print magazines has historically been understood to convey a place of honor or distinction to an individual or event. Term origin and definition Origin The etymology of the word "magazine" suggests derivation from the Arabic language, Arabic (), the broken plural of () meaning "depot, s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Magazines Established In 1980
A magazine is a periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content forms. Magazines are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combination of the three. They are categorised by their frequency of publication (i.e., as weeklies, monthlies, quarterlies, etc.), their target audiences (e.g., women's and trade magazines), their subjects of focus (e.g., popular science and religious), and their tones or approach (e.g., works of satire or humor). Appearance on the cover of print magazines has historically been understood to convey a place of honor or distinction to an individual or event. Term origin and definition Origin The etymology of the word "magazine" suggests derivation from the Arabic (), the broken plural of () meaning "depot, storehouse" (originally military storehouse); that comes to English via Middle French and Italian . ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Home Computer Magazines
A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or more human occupants, and sometimes various companion animals. Homes provide sheltered spaces, for instance rooms, where domestic activity can be performed such as sleeping, preparing food, eating and hygiene as well as providing spaces for work and leisure such as remote working, studying and playing. Physical forms of homes can be static such as a house or an apartment, mobile such as a houseboat, trailer or yurt or digital such as virtual space. The aspect of 'home' can be considered across scales; from the micro scale showcasing the most intimate spaces of the individual dwelling and direct surrounding area to the macro scale of the geographic area such as town, village, city, country or planet. The concept of 'home' has been researched and theorized across disciplines – topics ranging from the idea of home, the interior, the psyche, liminal space, contested space to gende ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Defunct Computer Magazines Published In The United States
{{Disambiguation ...
Defunct may refer to: * ''Defunct'' (video game), 2014 * Zombie process or defunct process, in Unix-like operating systems See also * * :Former entities * End-of-life product * Obsolescence Obsolescence is the process of becoming antiquated, out of date, old-fashioned, no longer in general use, or no longer useful, or the condition of being in such a state. When used in a biological sense, it means imperfect or rudimentary when comp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Apple II Periodicals
An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ''Malus sieversii'', is still found. Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Eurasia before they were introduced to North America by European colonization of the Americas, European colonists. Apples have cultural significance in many mythological, mythologies (including Norse mythology, Norse and Greek mythology, Greek) and religions (such as Christianity in Europe). Apples grown from seeds tend to be very different from those of their parents, and the resultant fruit frequently lacks desired characteristics. For commercial purposes, including botanical evaluation, apple cultivars are propagated by clonal grafting onto rootstocks. Apple trees grown without rootstocks tend to be larger and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Disk Magazine
A disk magazine, colloquially known as a diskmag or diskzine, is a magazine that is distributed in electronic form to be read using computers. These had some popularity in the 1980s and 1990s as periodicals distributed on floppy disk, hence their name. The rise of the Internet in the late 1990s caused them to be superseded almost entirely by online publications, which are sometimes still called "diskmags" despite the lack of physical disks. Defining characteristics A unique and defining characteristic about a diskmag in contrast to a typical ASCII "zine" or "t-file" (or even "g-file") is that a diskmag usually comes housed as an executable program file that will only run on a specific hardware platform. A diskmag tends to have an aesthetically appealing and custom graphical user interface (or even interfaces), background music and other features that take advantage of the hardware platform the diskmag was coded for. Diskmags have been written for many platforms, ranging f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |