FOR A FULL AND RATHER OBSESSIVE BREAKDOWN OF THE LOST WORLD OF 8 BIT, TRY HERE.

A.C.E. (Advanced Computer Entertainment)(1983-4)
Fondly-recalled magazine featuring games such as Mission Impossible and Aliens (well, it was a long time ago). They always seemd to have articles on "The latest console" which never appeared, eg. an amazing console that had a built in steering wheel that you could convert into a motorbike handlebar or flight yoke type of affair. They predicted that every home user would have a VR headset for their home computer by the mid 90's. In the final issue they promised that next month's issue would be the biggest ever, but there were never any more, it just dissapeared off of the face of the earth.

ACORN PROGRAMS (1983-4)
The very arse-end of comp. mags - 99p bought you a flimsy compendium of type-in listings for the trusty Model B, friend of primary school headmasters and garden shed bearded types in Cambridge. News stories included the mission statement of the Acorn Electron - to get girls interested in computers (how, they didn't say), and the BBC's Ceefax-based Telesoftware service. Programs ranged from the humble 'Alpha Sort' ("Enter up to 15 words and Alpha Sort will put them into alphabetical order"), to the 700-line magnum opus that was 'Bull and Cow' ("Yet another imitation of that old favourite, Mastermind"). Advertisers included the once mighty Superior Software, with 'Fruit Machine' ("With a little imagination you might be able to convince yourself you are in Las Vegas").

ACORN USER/MICRO USER (c.1981-7)
These twin BBC user mags enjoyed something of a symbiotic relationship with each other during the high noon of the BBC microcomputer in the mid eighties. A friendly but long running feud between the two mags, as they battled it out for an ever dwindling readership, resulted in Micro User disparaging Acorn User as 'the mag for squirrels' in its 'light hearted' 'and finally' column at the back. The magazines had the following format: A software review of the latest games & utilities (went slightly overboard when 'Elite' was launched in '83, Acornsoft's finest hour);A 5 page long program listing, printed in dot matrix draft typeface, which one was meant to spend two weeks copying out and debugging, which no one I new ever bothered with;A somewhat anal retentive technical question and answer section, with obscure queries; Numerous full page ads for Watford Electronics, Superior Software, Tynesoft, Acornsoft, etc; Those were the days - you can almost hear the clatter of cheap cassettes being slammed into tape recorders the nation over!

ATARI USER (1985-88)
The 8-bit Atari owner's only choice without sending off for some overpriced US import magazine. Dull to say the least, no graphics, very little colour, no exciteable writers. No wonder everyone went out and got a C64 instead.

BIG K (1984) Little-remembered cross-platform games rag from the mid-'80s. You got a free C15 cassette with issue 1. It was like a cheaper and crapper C&VG as in that it tried to cover everything.

COMMODORE FORMAT (1989-93)
Future Publishing's Zzap!64 competitor, brilliantly just missing the C64's heyday of '84 to '88. Less gaudy design than Commodore Force, but only just. Interesting lack of foresight blighted the new venture, the first issue proudly announced the launch of the C64GS - that was a C64 without the keyboard, tape machine, disk drive and BASIC, you had to stick cartridges in it that cost twice as much as a tape. Great. By issue 8 it was '64GS, you didn't buy one of those did you? Hoo, hoo, hooooo... who told you to do that then? Eh? Oh, er...sorry.' Gave away good games on the covertape (Park Patrol, weyhey!) but said very nasty things about two of my own games, so they must burn in hell for all eternity. Obviously.

PERSONAL COMPUTER NEWS (1983-1986)
Weekly tome of not many pages, but it was 35p, so who cared? Featured the launch of the Apple Lisa, Osborne 1 and the first Compaq luggable as well as older stuff like the Commodore Pet and Tandy TRS80.

SINCLAIR PROGRAMS/SINCLAIR PROJECTS (1982-84)
Two spin offs from Sinclair User, both costing 95p which seemed an extortionate amount of money in those days, each contained exactly what it said on the box. 'Programs' was filled with Space Invader, Simon and Personal Finance programs in the finest BASIC, lucky authors getting a tenner for their trouble. 'Projects' showed you how to connect your ZX80 to the mains and turn a lamp on and off. The fact that it would take at least 6 minutes to load the program, run it and operate the light, while getting up and flicking the switch took about 10 seconds, was missing the point totally. This was the future, remember? Next stop, matter transportation. No, really. Doesn't listening to 'Dare!' make you feel old?

SINCLAIR USER (1981-91)
From the ZX80 to the QL (almost), Sinclair computers were probably the best example of the British hobbyist computer industry, and played host to many of the big software names of the Playstation age (Ocean, Rare (née Ultimate - Play The Game), US Gold, Software Creations etc.) Sinclair User embraced the whole range at some point or other. So you’d have news pages (‘16K Ram Pack reduced to £19.99’), game reviews with no pictures, Program Printout (type in another crap version of Pacman in BASIC, if you could decipher the rather squiffy ZX Printer-printed listing), and Andrew Hewson did a machine code techy spot. Ridiculous covers were one notable feature of the publication in the early days. There would usually be a feature on someone who used his Sinclair machine for some ‘interesting’ purpose, and this would relate to the cover image. For example, a mountaineer who used his ZX81 to plot courses up Mount Pling would feature on the cover dressed in his anorak, fluffy hat and spiky shoes, but clutching his little bit of Sir Clive’s product. People would often hide SU inside a copy of Big Jugs to save embarrassment. Later on, once the serious users had either died or progressed to a PC, the mag became the domain of THE (Spectrum-owning) KIDS, dropped the interesting bits and just did games, in colour, with another free tape on the cover. The cover then sported the usual sci-fi/fantasy/two blokes fighting type cartoon bollocks that everyone else did by then. Blame ‘Crash’. By the end of the magazine the covertape had given away almost every Spectrum game worth having, thus hammering in the final nail as far as the machine’s commercial life was concerned. Amstrad had been trying for years...

16/48 and SPECTRUM COMPUTING (1983/4)
Spectrum magazine in digital form (well, you could argue that it was in analogue form as it was recorded on a cassette tape, but we won’t). Not really magazines in the true sense of the word, more a collection of programs of various types - 16/48 did a multi-multi-part adventure game called ‘The Long Way Home’, and Spectrum Computing did a demo of Quiksilva’s EasySpeak software (‘Whherrllkkkkhhom- mmmmmebzzzzzthhhoooowwwwzzwzwZzzZZzpphektrummmmGgghomffffuttttiiin- nnnnggzgggzzzzbzzk..k…..k….bzk’), later used for those stupid singing Christmas trees, it would seem. A good idea, but not too easy to read under the bedclothes with a torch.

EXPERIENCE ISSUE 15 of 16/48 Magazine IN ITS ENTIRETY HERE - specfun.zip (119K) [All the sections of issue 15 in .sna format; these should be suitable for Amiga and PC emulators.]

YOUR SPECTRUM/SINCLAIR (1983-93)
The first Spectrum specific magazine, and a real injection of colour and imagination into the genre. The second issue ran a competition to win £3000's worth of Spectrum hard and software, you had to get to a certain point in 3D Ant Attack to discover something or other, and then phone a number at 12:00 midday on a certain date. The 'phone network actually broke down under the strain and some bastard who called in early won it as he was the only one to get through. Changed to Your Sinclair for some reason later on, not that they featured any other machine. Took gaming seriously, with hacking programs for cheats being taken as an art form. Also managed to make serious features interesting, unlike Sinclair User. From The Hip with Troubleshootin' Pete. Also responsible for the Jet Set Willy 'Raft to Secret Parts' hoax, with hundreds of players suckered into waiting for 12 hours for the non-appearence of the vessel. Yeah, very funny...

ZZAP!64 (1985-1991) and COMMODORE FORCE (1991-93)
The Newsfield giant produced this C64 sister to Crash! launched from the ashes of Personal Computer Games. Original team included Gary Penn, games champ Julian Rignall and Bob Wade, and was the first to include percentage scores for games. Got Jeff Minter in to write a regular column, pissed him off in the first issue by slating Mama Llama, and that was the end of that. Gradually went shit around 1987/8 by employing the likes of Kati Hazma and Gordon Houghton, who all thought they were hilarious but in actual fact were about as funny as a road accident. Also sold out by starting an Amiga section around this time, which was just NOT ON. Whole writing team were sacked by Newsfield soon after to be replaced by some people who nobody can remember. Limped on until around 1991 when Newsfield went bump, was relaunched as Commodore Force and incredibly was even worse - there was now so much unreadable text and clashing colours it looked like the art editor had chucked his lunch up onto the pages and scattered Letraset on top. Basically lost it when they took the Rockford doodles out.  

They must perform a Quirkafleeg: Ben H, Adrian Partington, Daniel Thornton, Mark Jones, Adrian Graham, Matt Elkington.