Friday, May 17, 2024

Compute! (May 1985)

Compute! (May 1985) Compute! was a popular magazine in the 1980s and very early 1990s that covered all of the home computers popular at the time. In 1985 that included the IBM PC (and compatibles), Commodore 64, VIC-20, Atari 8-bit, TI-99/4A, Apple II, and Macintosh. The May 1985 issue includes:

Features

GEM: A New Look for IBM and Atari - GEM was an operating system interface. Basically it was a GUI shell over DOS. It was available for both PCs and the Atari ST. However, while it was the main interface on the Atari ST, it had a fairly small market share on the PC.

Home Financial Calculator - A type in home budget program for the Commodore 64, VIC-20, Atari 8-bit, and Apple II.

Space Dodger - A type in action game for the TI-99/4A, Commodore 64, VIC-20, Atari 8-bit, and Apple II.

Reviews

Relax Stress Reduction System - Relax, is a software product that uses biofeedback and computer generated graphics to help you reduce stress. It was available for the Commodore 64, PC, Apple II, and Atari 8-bit.

Sidekick for PC and PCjr - Sidekick provided a series of tools, including a calculator, notepad, calendar with diary, and ASCII table, that could be accessed via a keystroke even while running other software in DOS.

Gateway to Apshai - This was an action/adventure game that was available for the Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit, and Coleco Adam. I had a lot of fun with this one on the Commodore 64.

_{Table of Contents from the May 1985 issue of Compute!}

Columns and Departments

The Editor's Notes - How there tends to be resistance to new technologies. The focus here is the typewriter vs. word processor.

Readers' Feedback - Readers write in to discuss baud, reading the PC keyboard from BASIC, Commodore 64s in the classroom, chaining programs on the Commodore 64, help with Deadline by Infocom, analog vs. digital joysticks, and more.

The Beginner's Page - Using loops in BASIC.

Telecomputing Today - A tutorial on uploading and downloading files. Trivial today but not quite as much so in 1985.

Computers and Society: Visual Computing, Part 2 - The second part in a series on graphical operating environments.

The Journal

ScriptSave: Automatic Disk Saves for Commodore 64 Speedscript 3.0 - A type-in utility that works with Speedscript 3.0 on the Commodore 64 to automatically save your work every 10 minutes.

Dynamic Function Keys for VIC & 64 - A type-in program that assigns useful functions for programmers to the function keys on the VIC-20 and Commodore 64.

IBM Disk Rx - A type-in program for DOS machines designed for file recovery of accidentally deleted files.

Apple IIc RAM Disk Mover, Part I - A type-in utility to quickly move the contents of a floppy disk to a RAM disk.

_{Back cover of the May 1985 issue of Compute!}

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