PC Magazine (February 1983)

PC Magazine (February 1983)

For most of the 1980s and 1990s I would say there were two big PC oriented magazines in the U.S. Those would be PC World and PC Magazine. There were plenty of other but of those dedicated specifically to the PC, these were probably the most well known. In 1983 it may not have been a forgone conclusion that the IBM PC would set the standard for decades to come but but the writing was already on the wall. You could tell by the sheer amount of advertising which was a pretty good measure at the time of popularity. This issue of PC Magazine from February 1983 approaches 500 pages in length. It's hard to conceive of a monthly publication having that many pages today. Many of those pages were of course ads. The contents of this issue includes:

Cover Story

• The Tale Of The Mouse - In 1983, the mouse was not yet standard equipment on PCs. This article gives a history of the device and enumerates its benefits.


• VisiOn, A Mouse On The Digital Desktop - VisiCorp, the company famous for creating the first spreadsheet program VisiCalc, introduces Vision, a software/hardware package that include a mouse and software that makes use of it. "Rather than requiring you to memorize lists of commands, VisiOn lets you indicate what you want by pointing a small arrow on the screen at various items on the menus...".

Software

• Personal Finance Programs For The PC - A look at various finance programs deigned to help balance your budget. Packages looked at here include Personal Computer/Personal Finance Program, Home Finance Program, and Home Budget Program. Naming sure wasn't very original...


• Five Financial Programs For The Home - More software to help you keep track of your finances that are a little more advanced than the above. Software reviewed here includes Bonus Accounting System, Financier Personal Series, FMS II, Home Accountant Plus, and Money Maestro.


• Eight General Ledgers For Small Business - Running general ledger software was one of the main uses of personal computers for business uses in the early days. Eight different such packages are looked at here including General Ledger 2.0, BPI General Accounting, Datasmith Bookkeeping System, General Ledger System, General Ledger, General Ledger By Peachtree, Peachtree Series 4, and Versaledger II.


• Expanding Your Printer's Horizons - A look at a program called Sideways which was basically a program that let you print in landscape mode.


• Five C Language Compilers - I still program in C today. Here's a look at five C compilers from before I knew anything about programming including C88, c-systems C, Ci-C86, Telecon C and SuperSoft C. Included are benchmark numbers like compile time, runtime, .exe file size and more. Comparisons are made to IBM Pascal, IBM compiled BASIC and interpreted BASIC. It's interesting to note that at the time, the runtime of compiled BASIC and Pascal programs was faster than compiled C programs.

_{Table of Contents from the February 1983 issue of PC Magazine}

Hardware

• Hard Disks Made Easy - A comparison of two removable hard disk systems. The 3.9-inch Tecmar and the 5.25-inch Genie. Both featured 5MB of storage per cartridge. The drives ranged from $1795 to $2295 and the cartridges were $90 to $119 each.

Programming

• Kaleidoscope - PC Magazine may not really be remembered for its type-in programs but it did have some in its early days. Included here is a BASIC program for creating a kaleidoscope display designed to be a programming tutorial.


• How To Build A Computer Maze - A tutorial for creating a maze including a type-in maze game in BASIC.

PC Arcade

• The Organization Man Meets Pac-Man - Reviews of PC games including Executive Suite, Cosmic Crusader, Crossfire, and Snack Attack II.

Legal

• Trading Secrets - An article on protecting...and revealing trade secrets.

Finance

• Making Tax Write-offs Your Business - Ways to make your computer purchase a tax write-off.

_{Table of Contents from the February 1983 issue of PC Magazine (continued)}

IBM Eye

• Anatomy Of A Colossus, Part II - The second part of a look at IBM's history and its role in the personal computer market.

Education

• How To Start A User Group - User groups were a pretty big deal before the age of the Internet. I never really belonged to one but there was a small group of local BBS users and sysops that I would hang out with sometimes in the early/mid 1990s.

PC Fiction

• EPICAC - Science Fiction writer Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. writes about a computer that falls in love.

Book Exerpt

• Games, Hypergames, And Metagames - Chapter five of a book called The Electronic Cottage. It investigates some of the uses for computers in games.

Reader's Turn

• Quest For The Ideal Language - One person describes their ideal computer language. In this case it turns out to be FORTH.

Departments

• From The Editor's Screen - An editorial on how the future is now.


• Letters to PC - Letters from readers about a review of Personal Review, careers in computing, tips for buying a computer, misleading advertising, Dbase II, Vocab Teacher, local networks, Easywriter and the NEC 3550, Wordstar, MicroPro, and more.


• To All From Ahl - Programming "today" vs. programming in the 50s, 60s and 70s.


• PC-Communiques - The latest news, etc. from the computer world including walking robots, IBM to build PCs in France, IBM invests in Intel, farmers pick Farm Management System as best software for farmers, IBM donates computer equipment to schools, CP/M-86 price drops, and more.


• PC Tutor - Questions answered about clearing the screen, displaying superscripts and subscripts, using Intel's 8087 math co-processor, using a RAM-disk, using single sided disks on a double sided drive and more.


• Club News - News from various user groups and BBSes around the country.

_{Back cover of the February 1983 issue of PC Magazine}

Read more: https://www.megalextoria.com/wordpress/index.php/2023/10/31/pc-magazine-february-1983/

Nintendo Power (December 1995)

Nintendo Power (December 1995)

At the end of 1995 the Super Nintendo was at its peak. Though it would have a few more good years, it would be mostly downhill from here as the Nintendo 64 would be released the following year. This was the holiday season that the Virtual Boy was around also. It lasted all of about five minutes on the shelves. This was probably Nintendo's biggest flop...by far. Though I wish I would have bought about a 100 of them when they were put on clearance. Could probably make a fortune today. The December 1995 issue of Nintendo Power includes:

Full Coverage

• Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest - A full guide to this blockbuster game. One of the more technically impressive games for the SNES and a very good side-scrolling platform game.


• Wario Land - While the 3-D graphics were certainly unique on the Virtual Boy, the novelty of the all red display wears thin pretty soon. Also, I don't think any of the games were really THAT good, including this one.


• Waterworld - As I recall, this movie was a pretty big flop in that it cost a lot more to produce than it made. This version of the game for the Super NES is a combination of side-scrolling and isometric view adventure/puzzle game. This game ended up being only released in PAL territories. That must have been a late decision given this lengthy look at the game in Nintendo Power. Maybe the movie did better in Europe.


• Sports Scene - A look at three new sports games for the Super NES, including NBA Give 'N Go, Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball, and NFL Quarterback Club '96.

_{Table of Contents from the December 1995 issue of Nintendo Power}

Take 2 Reviews

• Mechwarrior 3050 - Not to be confused with the first person Mechwarrior games, this is a continuation of the isometric action series though this one has less plot than the original.


• Urban Strike - The sequel to Jungle Strike and part of one of the better shooter series for the Super NES (and Genesis for that matter).

Special Features

• Shoshinkai Preview - The place where the Nintendo 64 will be officially unveiled (in Japan at least).


• Earthworm Jim 2 Preview - A look ahead what was to be one of the better platform games for the Super NES.

Epic Center

• Epic News - An update on the upcoming Super Mario RPG, screen shot of Tactics Ogre, Square Soft and Enix soon to release Romancing Saga 3 and Dragon Quest VI respectively, and more.


• Secret of Evermore - The second part of a guide for this RPG, though Nintendo Power insists this is a review.


• P.T.O. II - Review/guide to this World War II action/strategy game in which you take command of either the U.S. Navy or the Japanese Navy.

Every Issue

• Player's Pulse - Readers write in with their ideas for dream games. Some would eventually happen (like a Mario Kart sequel).


• Power Charts - The Top twenty games for the Super NES this month include Killer Instinct, Chrono Trigger and Donkey Kong Country at the top of the list. The top Game Boy games include The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Donkey Kong Land and Tetris, then there is also a top 10 sports games list and top 5 Virtual Boy games list (probably close to the total catalog).


• Classified Information - Codes and other tricks for Killer Instinct, Bubsy II, Syndicate, Chrono Trigger, Judge Dredd, Batman Forever, Mega Man VII and more.


• Counselors' Corner - Questions answered and problems solved for Doom (Super NES), Yoshi's Island (Super NES), Mortal Kombat II (SNES), Mortal Kombat II (Game Boy), and more.


• Arena - Challenges for Yoshi's Island, Killer Instinct and Doom.

_{Back cover of the December 1995 issue of Nintendo Power}

Read more: https://www.megalextoria.com/wordpress/index.php/2023/10/27/nintendo-power-december-1995/

Gun Control Advocates Ignore What the Founding Fathers Really Thought

In all my years of existence, the Second Amendment of our Constitution has always been considered controversial. Opponents claim it is the cause of gun violence. Proponents assert that it helps guarantee freedom and safety.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

These twenty-seven words have been the subject of much debate during the 20th and 21st centuries. Does it mean that citizens only have a right to own guns if the state has a well-regulated militia in place that they are a part of, or does it mean absolutely that the right to bear arms should not be infringed? Perhaps it means that you can only use guns for hunting purposes, or you’re not allowed to have anything more complicated than an 18th century musket because that’s what the founders had when they wrote this?

The last two questions don’t seem to make sense when you look at the wording of the Second Amendment, but somehow opponents have made this a pillar of their arguments because they keep repeating and insisting on it on the grounds that “we don’t know what the founding fathers really intended when they wrote this.”

But that’s not true. We do know what the founding fathers thought, because they wrote a series of seventy-eight essays called The Federalist Papers to sell the Constitution to the American people in the late 1780s. Exploring these writings can shed light on the views of the founding fathers, and thus, on the proper interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Federalist Paper No. 46

In the lead up to the Revolutionary War, Americans were the most heavily-armed people on the planet in regard to citizen ownership of firearms. This was a necessity of life on the frontier because it was needed for protection against Native American attacks along with wild animals. In the more heavily populated areas of New England and the Middle Colonies, the French were to the North and West which created another security threat. Essentially, the people were on their own for protection and needed to take matters into their own hands.

During the Revolutionary War, the British Army committed many atrocities against the colonists that were fighting for independence. These experiences left a bitter taste for many regarding powerful government and a large standing army. The fear was that a tyrant could seize power and then use the power of the military to oppress the people.

At the same time, many American citizens identified their allegiance to their state rather than the country, preferring to say I am a Virginian over I am an American. Much resistance to the adopting the Constitution came from a fear that a centralized national government would overpower the state and oppress the people in the state as a result. Federalist Paper No.46, believed to have been written by then future President James Madison, addressed these concerns.

“The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence.”

These numbers that Madison is using are based on the population during the 18th century, but the concept remains the same. If the American military was used to oppress the American people, they would be vastly outnumbered by the citizenry. He goes on to write:

“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.”

The concept of the population outnumbering the military being a guaranteed check against the growth of tyranny is only effective if the citizenry is armed to the point where they can make a difference should a fight ever break out.

Armed Citizen Militias during the Revolutionary War

During the American Revolution there were essentially three fighting forces on the land in North America. On one side was the British army while on the other was the American Army supplemented by local militias. Both the British and American armies held the militia in inferior regard as they were unprofessional and often unreliable.

After five years of indecisive fighting in the North, the British devised a strategy were they would conquer the South, move north to crush the middle colonies, and finally conquer an isolated hostile New England. In a worst case scenario, with the South secured, the British high command figured that they would at least be able to hold onto some of their colonies if they lost the war. The British army under General Cornwallis was limited in manpower so their idea was to crush the American army and then install loyalist local governments with militias to maintain the public order in their absence as they moved through the continent.

That plan ultimately did not work because the local militias of the Carolinas fought what were essentially guerilla campaigns to prevent the British from being able to withdraw from areas they had taken over. The delays caused by this prevented General Cornwallis from a timely execution of his plans, and by the time he did arrive north in Virginia, he was eventually ambushed and cut off by Washington’s army.

And this is how some citizens with guns who were not in the army helped lead to the defeat of the most powerful military in the world at that time.

An AR-15 versus an F-15

It should be clear at this point that the early Americans saw gun rights as an important check on government power. But perhaps modern weaponry makes this point moot?

An extreme argument from the gun control crowd is that AR-15s and similar weapons would be futile against the government’s advanced weaponry arsenal consisting of arms like F-15 fighter jets. President Biden himself said, “If you need to worry about taking on the federal government, you need some F-15s. You don’t need an AR-15.”

It’s really difficult to imagine why the sitting President of the United States would make this argument, as it does nothing to win over the pro-Second Amendment crowd to accepting gun control measures. To the contrary, it only seems to reinforce former President James Madison’s view that an armed citizenry is essential as an equalizer to a corrupt government.

Daniel Kowalski

Daniel Kowalski is an American businessman with interests in the USA and developing markets of Africa.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Gun Control Advocates Ignore What the Founding Fathers Really Thought

Vintage Photos - Oestreicher (1249-1252)

See the previous post in this series here.

I had the opportunity to pick up a huge batch of slides a while back. These pictures span from as early as the late 1940s to as late as the early 1990s. These came to me second hand but the original source was a combination of estate sales and Goodwill. There are many thousands of these slides. I will be scanning some from time to time and posting them here for posterity.

Getting your pictures processed as slides used to be pretty common but it was a phenomenon I missed out on. However, my Grandfather had a few dozen slides from the late 1950s that I acquired after he died. That along with having some negatives I wanted to scan is what prompted me to buy a flatbed scanner that could handle slides and negatives, an Epson V600. It can scan up to four slides at a time with various post-processing options and does a decent enough job.

This set continues a large batch of slides that originally came from an estate sale and appear to have belonged to a locally well known photographer (or perhaps a friend or family member) from the Spokane Washington area and later Northern Idaho named Leo Oestreicher. He was known for his portrait and landscape photography and especially for post cards. His career started in the 1930s and he died in 1990. These slides contain a lot of landscape and portrait photos but also a lot of photos from day to day life and various vacations around the world. Here's an article on him from 1997 which is the only info I have found on him: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/jan/04/photos-of-a-lifetime-museum-acquisition-of-leo/

Many of these slides had the date they were processed stamped or printed on them. I've found that in cases where I could verify the date, that this date has typically been the same month the photos were taken. In other words, I expect that in MOST cases these photos were taken relatively near the processing date.

Click the link below to also see versions processed with color restoration and Digital ICE which is a hardware based dust and scratch remover, a feature of the Epson V600 scanner I am using. There are also versions processed with the simpler dust removal option along with color restoration.

All of the photos in this set appear to be from the Christmas 1956 time frame. The second one is dated specifically December 23rd, 1956. The others are labeled with names...see the captions below.
Terry Wager

Xmas Dinner, Desert Hotel, 12/23/56 - Maybell Wendler, Leo + T rose? Mogato?

Jennie's Tumbleweed Christmas Tree - Floyd + Molly Walser

Leo + Marie

The entire collection that has been scanned and uploaded so far can also be found here.

Nintendo Power (August 1993)

Nintendo Power (August 1993)

While I was never a subscriber, there's no doubt that Nintendo Power was the magazine to have for Nintendo loyalists. August 1993 was just past the peak of my NES/SNES playing days as I was moving on to college (and PC gaming) but I still played from time to time. The August 1993 issue of Nintendo power includes:

Super NES

• Street Fighter II Turbo - An overview and strategy guide for Street Fighter II Turbo. I was really excited about the original Street Fighter II coming out on the SNES but I honestly didn't care much about the subsequent variants.


• Zombies Ate My Neighbors - Strategy guide for this underrated game that could best be described as comedy/horror. It is an overhead action game reminiscent of Gauntlet.


• Alien 3 - Guide for this game based on the movie of the same name. Not the best Alien movie...or the best game.

Game Boy

• Speedy Gonzalez - A side-scrolling platform game from Sunsoft featuring your favorite Looney Tunes mouse.


• Star Trek: The Next Generation - Take command of the STTNG crew in various missions while on the go.

NES

• Jurassic Park - The movie was absolutely huge when it came out. It was even a huge deal when it was first shown on network television. Licensed games aren't generally the best but this one isn't terrible. This strategy guide will help you through it.


• King's Quest V - The King's Quest series is better known on the PC but this conversion of King's Quest V for the NES wasn't too bad if you like this sort of game. This guide can be helpful...and also spoil the game.

_{Table of Contents from the August 1993 issue of Nintendo Power}

Tips From The Pros

• Nester's Adventures - The continuing adventures of Nester. This is an ongoing comic book that puts Nester in the game.


• Classified Information - Tips, cheats and codes for Double Dragon (unlimited continues), Super Valis IV (easy mode), SimEarth (sound test), Aerobiz (sound test), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV (bonus turtles), Batman Returns (extra man), Cal Ripken Jr. Baseball (all Ripken team), The Combatribes (extra credits, super hard difficulty, one round match), Deadheat Scramble (track select), and more.

The Info Zone

• Next Issue - Coming next month, coverage of Final Fight 2, Rock 'N' Roll Racing, Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade, Final Fantasy Legend III, and more.

Video Updates

• Now Playing - A brief look at soon to be released games including Final Fight 2 (SNES), Super Aquatic Games (SNES), Aliens vs. Predator (SNES), First Samurai (SNES), Dracula (SNES), Goof Troop (SNES), Street Fighter II Turbo (SNES), Nigel Mansell's World Championship (SNES), Zombies Ate My Neighbors (SNES), Super Baseball 2020 (SNES), Jurassic Park (NES), Jimmy Connors Tennis (NES), Dracula (NES), Nigen Mansell's World Championship (NES), Goal! (Game Boy), Spider-Man 3 (Game Boy), Muhammad Ali's Boxing (Game Boy), Tesserae (Game Boy), and Speedy Gonzales (Game Boy).


• Pak Watch - Previews of games accessories still in development including Clay Fighter (SNES), F1: Pole Position (SNES), Plok (SNES), Battlecars (SNES), Power Plug (SNES), Star Trek: The Next Generation (SNES), SimAnt (SNES), Mega Man VI (NES), Final Fantasy Legend III (Game Boy), Mega Man IV (Game Boy), and more.

Player's Forum

• Player's Pulse - Letters from readers about Blaster Master, game achievements, Star Fox, and more.


• Power Player's Challenge - High scores and other challenges for various games including Phalanx, F-Zero, Super Black Bass, Track and Field, Wave Race, Asteroids, NES Open Tournament Golf, Yoshi, Duck Tales 2, and more.


• Player's Poll Contest - Win a seven foot Alien and Ripley's cryotube (actual prop from the movie). Other prizes include an Alien 3 video tape, Alien 3 game for the system of your choice and t-shirts.

Comics

• Star Fox - Star Fox in comic book form.

Special Features

• The Name of the Game - A look at games with the same name on different systems. Sometimes they are (basically) the same game. Sometimes they are completely different.

_{Back cover of the August 1993 issue of Nintendo Power}

Read more: https://www.megalextoria.com/wordpress/index.php/2023/10/19/nintendo-power-august-1993/

Compute! (February 1989)

Compute! (February 1989)

Compute! was a multiformat computer magazine that covered a wide variety of platforms. In 1989 that included at least the PC (DOS), Commodore 64, Apple II, Amiga, Macintosh and Atari ST. The February 1989 issue includes:

Features

• Money, Money, Money - An overview of six personal financial management packages including Andrew Tobias' Managing Your Money (Apple II, IBM PC, Macintosh), Dollars and Sense (Apple II, IBM PC, Macintosh), MoneyCounts 5.0 (IBM PC), On Balance (Apple II), Smart Money (Apple II, Apple IIgs, IBM PC), and Sylvia Porter's Your Personal Financial Planner (Apple II, Commodore 64, Commodore 128, IBM PC).


• Order From Chaos: Money and Your Spreadsheet - A guide to building a spreadsheet template to keep track of your money.

_{Table of Contents from the February 1989 issue of Compute!}

Reviews

• Fast Looks - Brief overviews of new software including DeskPaint 2.0 (Macintosh), Map Skills (Apple II), and Grand Prix Circuit


• Pool of Radiance - The first of the Gold Box AD&D games and one of my favorite games at the time.


• Fantavision - An animation package for the Amiga, Apple II, Apple IIgs, and IBM PC.


• Tutor-Tech - Kind of like HyperCard but for the Apple II instead of the Macintosh.

_{Table of Contents from the February 1989 issue of Compute! (continued)}

Columns

• Editorial License - An editorial on how computers cost too much. Some examples given include an Apple IIgs system for over $3000, A PC compatible for $1500, and an Amiga or Atari ST for $800-$1000.


• News & Notes - The latest computer news, including plans to bring videotex service to the U.S. (not sure this ever actually happened or went very far if it did), a new Leisure Suit Larry game, Jack Nicklaus' Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf, the latest World of Commodore show, magneto-optical disk drives, and more.


• Gameplay - A look at improvements on old game concepts including Blockbuster (a newer version of Breakout), Better Dead than Alien (a newer version of Space Invaders), and more.


• Impact - Using your computer to do your taxes.


• Discoveries - Using CompuServe and other online services, including BBSes in education including to help teach English to Japanese students, improve reading and writing skills in high school students, and more.

Compute! Specific

• MS-DOS - Command line vs. GUI; a look at The Norton Commander. Plus, The Invisible Link, a program that lets you download in the background and more.


• 64 & 128 - GEOS 2.0, Dungeon Master's Assistant Volume I: Encounters from SSI, Final Assault from Epyx, Times of Lore from Origin, and Fast Break, a 3-on-3 basketball game from Accolade.


• Apple II - Del Yocam leaving Apple; Apple raises prices of Apple II and IIgs systems; rumors of an enhanced Apple IIgs, and more.


• Amiga - The Amiga is featured at several recent computer shows including World of Commodore, COMDEX and CES; Zoetrope special effects software; SysFont font software; and more.

_{Back cover of the February 1989 issue of Compute!}

Read more: https://www.megalextoria.com/wordpress/index.php/2023/10/16/compute-february-1989/

Can We Please Stop Sending Money to Ukraine Already?

The Biden administration asked Congress for $40 billion in funding on Thursday, including $13 billion in emergency defense aid for Ukraine and $8 billion in humanitarian aid for the war-torn country. The requested package also includes $12 billion in disaster response funding, $4 billion for the southern border, and funding for a host of other initiatives.

Congress has approved four rounds of aid to date for Ukraine, totalling $113 billion dollars. The most recent funding was approved last December and consisted of $45 billion for Ukraine and NATO allies as part of a $1.7 trillion spending bill.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer enthusiastically welcomed the new request. “The latest request from the Biden administration shows America’s continued commitment to helping Americans here at home and our friends abroad,” he said.

The Republicans, meanwhile, are striking a more cautious tone. “I look forward to carefully reviewing the Administration’s request to make sure it is necessary and appropriate to keep America safe, secure our borders, support our allies, and help communities rebuild after disasters,” said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

Unwilling Benefactors

Taxpayers, meanwhile, are surely wondering just how long this spending is going to drag on. Will the government continue funding the war in perpetuity? Is there any exit plan here?

More to the point, American funding of the war in Ukraine should never have been a thing in the first place. Regardless of where you stand on the war itself, American citizens who want no part in this conflict should not be coerced into funding one side of it.

The justification for this funding that we hear from politicians is that it helps protect “American interests.” But who are they to decide what our interests are and how to protect them? It’s an awfully paternalistic attitude when you think about it. “We know what’s best for the country,” they are effectively saying, “so we will decide for you what your money will be spent on.”

In this case, that means war machines.

And what of the people who deeply oppose such funding? “Tough luck” is the reply.

Another response is to chastise detractors for being “isolationists.” “You can’t ignore what’s going on in the rest of the world,” they say. But being against government funding of the war hardly has to mean ignoring the rest of the world. Individuals and organizations can get involved in all sorts of ways using funds from voluntary donors.

“But that won’t be enough money,” comes the response.

It might not be enough to satisfy your desires. But why should your preferences regarding someone’s finances take precedence over their own? Taking people’s money by force and using it to fund a cause that many of them deeply disagree with is a gross injustice. And the fact that you personally think it would be “good for America” doesn’t make it any more justified.

A Foreign Policy of Peace

In his book For a New Liberty, the economist and political philosopher Murray Rothbard lays out the ethical problems with war, one of which is the fact that it is financed coercively. “Since all governments obtain their revenue from the thievery of coercive taxation,” he writes, “any mobilization and launching of troops inevitably involve[s] an increase in tax-coercion.”

Though the US is only providing financial aid to Ukraine at this time, this is still an act of coercion, and it’s important to identify it as such. It’s not just that the government’s actions are impractical or distasteful. They are wrong. They are unjust. They are immoral.

The French economist Frédéric Bastiat sharply condemned such coercive transfers of money, which he referred to as legal plunder.

“But how is this legal plunder to be identified?” he asks. “Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.”

Bastiat’s council is to abolish all such laws. “The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights,” Bastiat continues. “He will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry…Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests.”

Bastiat’s words are as relevant today as ever. The vested interests tell us that our very civilization depends on them receiving funding. They tell scary stories about what will happen should the flow be cut off. But we’d be fools to take them at their word.

So what’s the alternative? Simply practice the foreign policy of Thomas Jefferson: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.”

This article was adapted from an issue of the FEE Daily email newsletter. Click here to sign up and get free-market news and analysis like this in your inbox every weekday.

Patrick Carroll

Patrick Carroll is the Managing Editor at the Foundation for Economic Education.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Can We Please Stop Sending Money to Ukraine Already?

Byte (November 1988 – IBM Special Edition)

Byte (November 1988 – IBM Special Edition)

Byte was one of the earliest and most in-depth computer magazines around while it was being published. It began life in the 1970s and lasted all the way into the 1990s. This issue is from November 1988 and is one of two issues published that month. Once the IBM PC became a huge deal, Byte started doing a yearly special "IBM" issue and did so for a number of years. This is one of those special IBM issues and it includes:

Trends

• Editorial: Two Roads - There was still a question at this time as to whether the IBM PS/2 would set the new standard for PCs to come or the AT/386 standard. We all know how that turned out...


• Probing the State of the Art - More about the latest in the PC world including both PS/2 and AT/386 standards. Plus a look at advanced operating systems like OS/2 and Unix. Also, I look at new peripheral devices like the HiREZ mouse from Logitech, the Kyocera F-3010 laser printer, the ScanJet from HP and more.


• Mapping the Software World - A look at some of the common types of software available and good representative examples, including integrated software packages, word processing software, desktop publishing software, spreadsheets, database management, telecommunications, drafting, painting, utilities and more.


• Beefed-up Bulletin Boards - While most hobby BBSes may have been run on a single phone line and a basic PC, there were some much larger systems out there. This article covers a few of them including Exec-PC (54 dial-up lines, 1.48 gigabytes of files), Invention Factory (24 dial-up lines, 1.2 gigabytes), Thousand Oaks Technical Database (160 megabyte), Utilities Exchange (117 megabytes). These systems offer maximum dial-up speeds of 2400bps to 9600bps. According to this article, at the time there were over 10,000 BBSes in the U.S.


• Migrating: Up or Down? - Migrating from mainframes to PCs and vice versa.

_{Table of Contents from the 1988 IBM Special Edition of Byte}

Technology

• The Micro Channel versus the AT Bus - The advantage of the PS/2 32-bit MCA bus was speed. The advantage of the AT Bus was significantly lower cost and greater compatibility with existing expansion cards. At the end of the day, it turned out that the PS/2 wasn't really faster than the fastest AT based machines and those AT machines were a whole lot cheaper. The rest is history. It wouldn't be long before 32-bit "AT" solutions came along like EISA and VLB.


• Keeping Up with the CPU - A processors in the PC increased in speed from 4.77 MHz to 8 MHz to 16 MHz and beyond, the bus (and system memory) started having trouble keeping up. Some solutions at the time were to introduce wait states (negating much of the speed advantage of faster CPUs), using faster DRAM (which was more expensive), or using SRAM (also expensive). For 386 based systems, the approach settled on was using standard DRAM but including a smaller amount of SRAM for cache. Essentially, the same approach at a high level is still used today with cache having long ago moved from the motherboard into the processor itself. Of course now CPUs have much more cache that systems back then had total memory. A common amount of memory in high end 386 desktop systems in 1988 would have been 1 or 2 MB. The relatively old at this point Ryzen 1700 I am typing this on has 8MB of L3 cache plus smaller amounts of L2 and L1.


• Whither IBM and Unix? - A look a the various implementations of Unix available including PX/IX, ISC, Xenix, and most recently for IBM, AIX. Plus, OS/2 versus Unix.


• DOS Meets Unix - Hosting DOS applications like Lotus 1-2-3, dBASE III, and WordPerfect in Unix.

Techniques

• OS/2 Communications - A look at communications software in OS/2. It turns out that creating such software that takes advantage of OS/2's multitasking capabilities is not especially difficult compared to DOS. OS2COMM (including source) is a simple com program for OS/2 that is looked at here as an example.


• Keep Your PC Healthy - Tips for keeping your PC in working order including things like keeping your environment dust free, not smoking around your computer, making sure it has proper airflow, and more. Plus, software oriented solutions like defragmenting your hard drive.


• Writing OS/2 Graphics - Technical considerations for creating graphics on OS/2, including things like privilege levels, 286 protected mode, directly accessing graphics hardware, multitasking and more.

_{Back cover of the 1988 IBM Special Edition of Byte}

Read more: https://www.megalextoria.com/wordpress/index.php/2023/10/12/byte-november-1988-ibm-special-edition/

Computer Gaming World (October 1990)

Computer Gaming World (October 1990)

Here's another issue of my favorite computer gaming magazine. While it covered multiple computer systems in its earlier days, as the world became more PC/DOS/Windows centric, so did the magazine. This magazine probably reached its peak in the mid 1990s. The October 1990 issue includes:

Features

• Dynamix and the Red Baron - A preview of Red Baron, a World War I combat flight sim from Dynamix.


• Storm Across Europe - Review of this World War II strategy game from SSI that offers scenarios in Africa, Europe and Russia. It's available for DOS, Amiga and the Commodore 64.


• Hits and Misses for Strategy Gamers - Brief reviews for pre-20th century war games including Ancient Art of War, Ancient Battles, Annals of Rome, Antietam, Armada, Austerlitz, Bandit Kings of Ancient China, Battle Cry of Freedom, Battles of Napoleon, Blue Powder/Grey Smoke, Borodino: 1812, Borodino, Broadsides, By Fire & Sword, Centurion: Defender of Rome, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Chickamuga, Civil War, Clear for Action, Clipper, Colonial Conquest, Decision at Gettysburg, Defender of the Crown, Diplomacy, Excalibur, Genghis Khan, Gold of the Americas, Heart of Africa, Joan of Arc, Lords of the Rising Sun, Nobunaga's Ambition, Pirates, and many more.


• Their Finest Hour Strategy Tips - Tips and strategies for this Battle of Britain flight sim.


• A New William Tell Overture - Review of The Legend of William Tell, an action strategy game featuring the title character (and his son).

_{Table of Contents from the October 1990 issue of Computer Gaming World}

Departments

• Taking A Peek - A brief look at new games with screen shots. Games mentioned include Unlimited Golf & Course Design, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Flood, Imperium, PGA Tour Golf, Anarchy, Hoyle' Book of Games Vol. II, Flight of the Intruder, Edward Thorp's Real Blackjack, and Treasure Trap.


• The Rumor Bag - Rumors include a new Test Drive game, a possible sequel to Loom, a new Bard's Tale Trilogy starting with Bard's Tale IV, Eye of the Beholder (a first person RPG), and more.


• Letters from Paradise - Letters from readers about Conflict by Virgin Mastertronic, previous CGW editorials, and more.


• Scorpion's View - Some hints for Secret of the Silver Blades, follow-up to Curse of the Azure bonds and SSI's latest AD&D game.

_{Back cover of the October 1990 issue of Computer Gaming World}

Read more: https://www.megalextoria.com/wordpress/index.php/2023/10/03/computer-gaming-world-october-1990/

Russell Brand’s Demonetization Is Not a Bug of the Emerging Financial Order, but a Feature

YouTube initiated a ban on commentator Russell Brand on last week that prohibits the celebrity from making money on its platform following accusations of sexual assault against the British comedian.

“If a creator’s off-platform behavior harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community," YouTube said in a statement.

Mr. Brand, a former self-confessed sex addict, was accused of sexual and emotional abuse that allegedly took place several years ago by four women in an investigation by the Times of London, The Sunday Times, and Channel 4 "Dispatches."

The 48-year-old actor denied the charges in a video he shared with his 6.6 million YouTube followers over the weekend.

"These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies. And as I've written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous," Mr. Brand said. "Now, during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual."

A day after the allegations were reported, police in the UK said they had received a report of a sexual assault allegedly involving Mr. Brand in September 2003.

The Rise of Financial Deplatforming

The accusations against Mr. Brand are serious, and could eventually lead to criminal charges, both in the United States and the UK. But at this point, they're just that: accusations. This is one of the problems with #MeToo trials in the court of public opinion. The accused are presumed guilty and prematurely punished.

Consider another celebrity who famously found himself accused: Johnny Depp. In 2018, the "Pirates of the Caribbean" star was summarily dropped by Disney following accusations of domestic violence made by his ex-wife, Amber Heard. It didn’t matter that Mr. Depp said the allegations were untrue, or that he had served without incident for more than a decade as the lead actor in a franchise that had generated more than $3 billion for Disney.

Though nearly ruined, Mr. Depp would go on to win a defamation suit against Ms. Heard, receiving a multi-million-dollar settlement. (The actor appears to have taken Disney’s betrayal personally, evidenced by his decision to not return to the popular "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise.)

YouTube and Disney, of course, have the right to associate with whomever they choose, but taking actions that destroy people’s livelihoods on mere accusations is a serious business, one that creates a dangerous incentive.

In her new book You Will Own Nothing, the bestselling author Carol Roth writes of a new financial world that's emerging in which governments and corporations increasingly decide what behaviors are good and what behaviors are bad.

While the First Amendment prohibits the government from taking criminal actions against people for sharing “bad” opinions, the government can encourage corporations to take direct actions against citizens that inflict serious social and—more importantly—financial harm.

YouTube demonetization, which is relatively common, is just one example. Bank account deplatforming, a method that's increasingly common in the United States and Canada, is another.

“Financial deplatforming, or banking censorship, will be a common lever governments and companies reach for when it comes to censorship of political opinions,” said Annelise Butler in a 2022 Heritage Foundation article.

Ms. Butler said companies acquiescing to government requests to demonetize and censor users are “mirroring those of China’s social credit system.”

Interestingly Ms. Roth makes the same comparison in "You Will Own Nothing," adding that she would have laughed off such a thing 10 years ago.

“Given that we are so close to social credit, with the social acceptance of moral judgment outside the legal system and the technical means to collect and analyze information at scale, the Chinese system provides a frightening road map,” Ms. Roth wrote.

This is what makes the government’s incestuous relationship with Big Tech and other companies so dangerous. Government officials can lean on companies to coerce them to punish dissent and Wrongthink, something it has done with great enthusiasm.

None of this is to say Russell Brand is guilty or innocent of the accusations against him, of course. We don’t know.

What we do know is that during the pandemic, Mr. Brand emerged as one of the leading voices against the government’s COVID regime, and he later became one of the most outspoken anti-war voices on YouTube. (We also know the FBI has a long history of using sexual indiscretions to control and silence powerful people.)

Protecting Its Own Interests

There's no evidence that Mr. Brand, who managed to survive the 2017 #MeToo movement with his reputation intact despite his promiscuous history, became a target for his outspoken views. But the Twitter Files revealed that both the White House and federal agencies spent considerable effort and resources attempting to influence social media companies to shape public opinion and silence critics of government policies.

In some cases, individual influencers were targeted, including independent journalist Alex Berenson, who is suing President Joe Biden and Pfizer executives who, according to his lawsuit (pdf), “specifically targeted Mr. Berenson for removal. The conspirators did not simply ask Twitter to remove a specific post Mr. Berenson made. Rather they pushed Twitter to ban him entirely, an unconstitutional prior restraint on his speech."

This shows the great lengths the state will go to to punish those who threaten their agendas, something the economist Murray Rothbard once observed, noting that the state inherently is an institution “largely interested in protecting itself rather than its subjects.”

All of this is made possible by the state’s expanding influence over Big Tech and the centralization of the global financial system.

Mr. Brand’s case shows that mere accusations are all it takes to leave someone suddenly demonetized.

“This is the informal social credit system that I talked about in ‘You Will Own Nothing’, coming after your sources of income at their discretion,” Ms. Roth wrote on X following Mr. Brand’s demonetization. “You are not ‘innocent until proven guilty’ in the big tech sphere or the court of public opinion.”

What few seem to realize is that this is likely a feature of the emerging financial order, not a bug.

This article originally appeared in The Epoch Times.

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Editor at Large of FEE.org at the Foundation for Economic Education.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Russell Brand’s Demonetization Is Not a Bug of the Emerging Financial Order, but a Feature

Vintage Photos - Oestreicher (1245-1248)

See the previous post in this series here.

I had the opportunity to pick up a huge batch of slides a while back. These pictures span from as early as the late 1940s to as late as the early 1990s. These came to me second hand but the original source was a combination of estate sales and Goodwill. There are many thousands of these slides. I will be scanning some from time to time and posting them here for posterity.

Getting your pictures processed as slides used to be pretty common but it was a phenomenon I missed out on. However, my Grandfather had a few dozen slides from the late 1950s that I acquired after he died. That along with having some negatives I wanted to scan is what prompted me to buy a flatbed scanner that could handle slides and negatives, an Epson V600. It can scan up to four slides at a time with various post-processing options and does a decent enough job.

This set continues a large batch of slides that originally came from an estate sale and appear to have belonged to a locally well known photographer (or perhaps a friend or family member) from the Spokane Washington area and later Northern Idaho named Leo Oestreicher. He was known for his portrait and landscape photography and especially for post cards. His career started in the 1930s and he died in 1990. These slides contain a lot of landscape and portrait photos but also a lot of photos from day to day life and various vacations around the world. Here's an article on him from 1997 which is the only info I have found on him: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/jan/04/photos-of-a-lifetime-museum-acquisition-of-leo/

Many of these slides had the date they were processed stamped or printed on them. I've found that in cases where I could verify the date, that this date has typically been the same month the photos were taken. In other words, I expect that in MOST cases these photos were taken relatively near the processing date.

Click the link below to also see versions processed with color restoration and Digital ICE which is a hardware based dust and scratch remover, a feature of the Epson V600 scanner I am using. There are also versions processed with the simpler dust removal option along with color restoration.

This appears to be a continuation of a set of photos that was taken in Arkansas in the late 1980s or early 1990s. The location was identified because some of the photos were taken near a Confederate grave and I was able to track down the name. The second photo here has a vehicle in it that might be able to narrow down the date a little further. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to help much in this case. The vehicle is a Dodge Caravan (or similar...there were Plymouth and Chrysler models of essentially the same vehicle) of a style that was manufactured between 1983 and 1990. It appears to be in excellent condition except for the mud so it was probably pretty new when this picture was taken. I can't tell from this photo which model year it is though. If it could be definitively determined to be a Grand Caravan vs. a Caravan then the range shifts to 1987-1990 which is narrower. Maybe someone else can tell but I can't from this photo.

The entire collection that has been scanned and uploaded so far can also be found here.

Computer Gaming World (March 1987)

Computer Gaming World (March 1987)

While I didn't really start reading it until the early 1990s, Computer Gaming World was by far my favorite computer gaming magazine. Eventually it would become a DOS and then DOS/Windows exclusive gaming magazine but it its earlier days it covered a variety of computer platforms. It had a very long life, eventually becoming Games for Windows before its death. The March 1987 issue includes:

Features

• The State of the Industry - An overview of the 1987 Winter Consumer Electronics Show. Highlights include PC compatibles announced by both Atari and Commodore. Commodore's choices include the PC10-1 and PC10-2 with the primary difference being 512K RAM vs. 640K RAM. I'm not sure Atari ever actually released any DOS machines. EA introduces "Software Classics", a budget line of games with the first release being Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future. Accolade released Desert Fox, Power and Spy vs. Spy. Activision released imports including The Rocky Horror Show, Spindizzy, Zoids and Titanic: The Recovery. Plus tons more games.


• Gunship - Review of this combat helicopter flight sim for the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, Apple and IBM.


• Gemstone Healer - An action adventure game sequel to Gemstone Warrior for the Apple II and Commodore 64.


• Fifty Mission Crush - Combat flight sim from SSI featuring the B-24 Bomber.


• Space M+A+X - Review of this space station construction simulator for DOS.

_{Table of Contents from the March 1987 issue of Computer Gaming World}

Departments

• Taking A Peek - A brief look at new games (with screen shots) including Killed Until Dead, Titanic, Aliens, Bard's Tale II, Championship Baseball, MRCA Flight Sim., Fist, Hallucinations, Parallax, King's Quest III, Uchi Mata, and Space Quest.


• Sports Scoreboard - A look at some of the latest sports related games including World Games, Championship Baseball, Equestrian Showjumper, and Beach Blanket Volleyball.

_{Back cover of the March 1987 issue of Computer Gaming World}

Read more: https://www.megalextoria.com/wordpress/index.php/2023/10/02/computer-gaming-world-march-1987/