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Softdisk ( ISSN 0886-4152), 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.
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 content on the back side. There was fairly little content on the first issue, and it was mostly repeated on the second issue, so later when issue numbers were retroactively assigned for the purpose of back issue sales the October, 1981 issue was designated as "Softdisk #1", with the preceding month's issue considered either "#0" or unnumbered.
Originally, the subscribers had to send back the previous month's disk when the following issue was received; reusable mailers were used for this purpose, with a postage-paid return address label on the flip side of the address label used for outbound mailing, which was inserted in a plastic Ziploc baggie on the outside of the mailer so it could be reversed by the recipient. This disk return requirement was due in part to the fact that floppy disks were more expensive in those days and needed to be reused for economy, but was also designed to allow the subscribers to participate by leaving feedback electronically on the returning disks, as well as article and program submissions.
At first, the only payment for published material was in the form of coupons for free issues (subscriptions were on a month-to-month basis, with subscribers enclosing payment for the next issue along with returning disks; the price was $5 per issue at first), though eventually monetary payments were instituted. There was quite a bit of submitted material even before there was any financial incentive to participate; similarly to later projects such as open-source software and wikis, Softdisk found a community of willing participants with motives other than making money.
As the publication grew and evolved, however, it became more conventional and "mainstream", losing some of its early quirky flavor and the community that developed around it; ultimately, it was more of a normal commercial publication, sold on an annual subscription basis and in retail stores, with a paid staff and contracted freelancers to produce material, and without any disk-return requirement.
Within the Apple II platform, Softdisk spawned Softdisk G-S for the Apple IIGS computer in 1989; Softdisk G-S lasted until 1997. [1] It took advantage of the improved graphic and sound capabilities of the IIGS over earlier Apple models. Diskworld for the Macintosh (later Softdisk for Mac) was also published, and eventually Softdisk was redesigned to have a similar user interface, with many of the same staff people working on both the Mac and Apple II products. The original publication continued past the time when most people in the computer field regarded the Apple II as obsolete, but eventually ended publication in August, 1995 with issue #166 (at which point then-editor Peter Rokitski was putting it out practically singlehandedly), survived by disk magazines for other computer lines such as the Macintosh and Windows which lasted a few more years before the entire line of Softdisk disk magazines was terminated.
The Apple II series is a family of home computers, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer, and launched in 1977 with the original Apple II.
A floppy disk or floppy diskette is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a fabric that removes dust particles from the spinning disk. Floppy disks store digital data which can be read and written when the disk is inserted into a floppy disk drive (FDD) connected to or inside a computer or other device.
Lisa is a desktop computer developed by Apple, released on January 19, 1983. It is generally considered the first mass-market personal computer operable through a graphical user interface (GUI). In 1983, a machine like the Lisa was still so expensive that it was primarily marketed to individual and small and medium-sized businesses as a groundbreaking new alternative to much bigger and more expensive mainframes or minicomputers such as from IBM, that either require additional, expensive consultancy from the supplier, hiring specially trained personnel, or at least, a much steeper learning curve to maintain and operate. Earlier GUI-controlled personal computers were not mass-marketed; for example, the Xerox Alto was manufactured only for Xerox and select partners through Xerox PARC from the early to mid-1970s.
The Apple IIe Card is a compatibility card, which through hardware and software emulation, allows certain Macintosh computers to run software designed for the Apple II series of computers. Released in March 1991 for use with the LC family, Apple targeted the card at its widely dominated educational market to ease the transition from Apple II-based classrooms, with thousands of entrenched educational software titles, to Macintosh-based classrooms.
The Apple IIGS is a 16-bit personal computer produced by Apple Computer. It is the fifth and most powerful of the Apple II family. It is compatible with earlier Apple II models but has a Macintosh look and feel, and resolution and color similar to the Amiga and Atari ST. The "GS" in the name stands for "Graphics and Sound", referring to its enhanced multimedia hardware, especially its state-of-the-art audio.
The Macintosh SE is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, from March 1987 to October 1990. It marked a significant improvement on the Macintosh Plus design and was introduced by Apple at the same time as the Macintosh II.
Diskworld was a disk magazine for the Apple Macintosh computer system, published by Softdisk beginning in 1988. It was a sister publication of Softdisk for the Apple II, Loadstar for the Commodore 64, and Big Blue Disk for the IBM PC. Diskworld ceased publication in 1998.
Softdisk was a software and Internet company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Founded in 1981, its original products were disk magazines. It was affiliated and partly owned by paper magazine Softalk at founding, but survived its demise.
Creative Computing was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format than the rather technically oriented Byte.
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.
Loadstar was a disk magazine for the Commodore 64 computer, published starting in 1984 and ceasing publication in 2007 with its unreleased 250th issue. It derived its name from the command commonly used to execute commercial software from a Commodore 1541 disk: LOAD "*",8,1, with inspiration from the word "lodestar".
Softalk was an American magazine of the early 1980s that focused on the Apple II computer. Published from September 1980 through August 1984, it featured articles about hardware and software associated with the Apple II platform and the people and companies who made them. The name was originally used on a newsletter of Apple Software pioneer company, Softape, who in 1980 changed its name to Artsci Inc.
Nibble was a magazine for Apple II personal computer enthusiasts published from 1980 until 1992. The name means "half a byte" or "four bits." The proper spelling for a half-byte is "nybble", riffing off of the term "byte". Most of the articles incorporated the source code of a small to medium-sized utility, application program, or game and a detailed description of how it worked. The headquarters was in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
The Apple IIc Plus is the sixth and final model in the Apple II series of personal computers, produced by Apple Computer. The "Plus" in the name was a reference to the additional features it offered over the original portable Apple IIc, such as greater storage capacity, increased processing speed, and a general standardization of the system components. In a notable change of direction, the Apple IIc Plus, for the most part, did not introduce new technology or any further evolutionary contributions to the Apple II series, instead merely integrating existing peripherals into the original Apple IIc design. The development of the 8-bit machine was criticized by quarters more interested in the significantly more advanced 16-bit Apple IIGS.
The Disk II Floppy Disk Subsystem, often rendered as Disk ][, is a 5 +1⁄4-inch floppy disk drive designed by Steve Wozniak at the recommendation of Mike Markkula, and manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. It went on sale in June 1978 at a retail price of US$495 for pre-order; it was later sold for $595 including the controller card and cable. The Disk II was designed specifically for use with the Apple II personal computer family to replace the slower cassette tape storage. These floppy drives cannot be used with any Macintosh without an Apple IIe Card as doing so will damage the drive or the controller.
FileWare floppy disk drives and diskettes were designed by Apple Computer as a higher-performance alternative to the Disk II and Disk III floppy systems used on the Apple II and Apple III personal computers. The drive is named Apple 871 in service documentation, based on its approximate formatted storage capacity in kilobytes, but is most commonly known by their codename Twiggy, after the famously thin 1960s fashion model named Twiggy.
The Macintosh External Disk Drive is the original model in a series of external 3+1⁄2-inch floppy disk drives manufactured and sold by Apple Computer exclusively for the Macintosh series of computers introduced in January 1984. Later, Apple would unify their external drives to work cross-platform between the Macintosh and Apple II product lines, dropping the name "Macintosh" from the drives. Though Apple had been producing external floppy disk drives prior to 1984, they were exclusively developed for the Apple II, III and Lisa computers using the industry standard 5+1⁄4-inch flexible disk format. The Macintosh external drives were the first to widely introduce Sony's new 3+1⁄2-inch rigid disk standard commercially and throughout their product line. Apple produced only one external 3+1⁄2-inch drive exclusively for use with the Apple II series called the Apple UniDisk 3.5.
The Integrated Woz Machine is a single-chip version of the floppy disk controller for the Apple II. It was also employed in Macintosh computers.