''Page 6'' (subtitled ''Atari Users Magazine'') was a British magazine aimed at users of

Atari 8-bit computers The Atari 8-bit computers, formally launched as the Atari Home Computer System, are a series of home computers introduced by Atari, Inc., in 1979 with the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The architecture is designed around the 8-bit MOS Technology 650 ...

and

Atari ST Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the company's Atari 8-bit computers, 8-bit computers. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985, and was widely available i ...

home computers. The first issue was in 1982, and it was renamed to ''Page 6 Atari User'' and then ''New Atari User'' before ceasing publication in 1998.

History

The magazine had its origins in the newsletter of the

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

User's Group, an independent Atari club based in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. Les Ellingham was appointed to be the editor of the newsletter, but decided to produce a magazine with broader appeal instead. He remained editor of ''Page 6'' throughout its entire run of 85 issues. Although

subscription The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century. It ...

-only for most of its life, it was available through newsagents during the late 1980s and early 1990s. When ''

Database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

'' ceased publication of the original '' Atari User'' magazine in 1988, ''Page 6'' bought the rights (and subscriber list), and renamed their magazine, firstly to ''Page 6 Atari User'' in February 1989 and then to ''New Atari User'' in June of the same year. The latter was simply ''Page 6'' under a different (and more newsagent-friendly) name, and had next to no continuity with the original ''Atari User''. The editor Les Ellingham had declined the offer to edit the original ''Atari User'' when approached by Database Publications in 1985. Due to "high interest rate, reluctance of the news trade to support smaller circulation magazines and reducing advertising income", New Atari User had to be withdrawn from retail sales and become subscription-only with issue 59 (December–January 1993).

Title

The magazine was named after the area of memory in 8-bit Atari computers covering locations 1536–1791. Memory is divided into ''pages'' of 256

byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...

s (the first being page 0). The sixth page begins at 256×6, or 1536. Page 6 is neither used by the

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

nor by Atari BASIC and so can be used to safely store short

machine language In computer programming, machine code is computer code consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). For conventional binary computers, machine code is the binaryOn nonb ...

routines to speed up BASIC programs.

References

External links

*
The Page 6 Magazine Library
at the Centre for Computing History 1982 establishments in the United Kingdom 1998 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Atari 8-bit computer magazines Atari ST magazines Bi-monthly magazines published in the United Kingdom Video game magazines published in the United Kingdom Defunct computer magazines published in the United Kingdom Home computer magazines Magazines established in 1982 Magazines disestablished in 1998 Mass media in Birmingham, West Midlands Mass media in Staffordshire {{UK-compu-mag-stub