Magazines of Yesteryear - ST Format Issue 46 - May 1993

Oh, ST Format, what were you thinking? The proclamations, the hyperbole, the... desperation? Six years before the Matrix and someone had definitely taken the blue pill...

It is indisputable that when the Atari ST arrived in 1985, it shook up the home computing market. However, by the time of this 1993 issue of Future Publishing's ST Format, things were not so rosy. A lack of focus, bad business decisions, and a complete disregard to actually developing the platform during the intervening period (something rivals Commodore were similarly guilty of until what turned out be a last desperate attempt with their 1992 refresh) had hammered ST users and it was pretty clear that the platform's days were numbered.

Unless you believe the cover. And, gentle reader, you really shouldn't.

Straight in with the news and the announcement of a £90 price cut to the STFM! Ok, not exactly a price cut per se given that the machine had been out of production for over a year, but a re-introduction of the base 512Kb STFM that originally launched in 1986 at a highly attractive price of £159. Sure, but even a reader back then should have questioned a) what the market was for the thing and b) just exactly how much was Atari going to make as a profit off such a low figure. The claim of 150,000 sales in 1993 sealed the deal. Whatever they were drinking at Atari HQ, it had a hefty percentage on the label. "Well placed" sources also stated that the 520 STE would drop to £199 and the 1040 STE to £249. There is a feature about the STFM later on which we'll get to, but for now... I'm pretty sure the Bearded One would have been weeping on his bike.... And as for the cover shout, no, there were not 150,000 new users, there was no additional stock on sale yet and... You get my point. 

In other news, peripheral and software provider Gasteiner were being threatened by Sega over the use of the name Mega Drive, with the former giving their ST hard drives that moniker, and the latter, well, you can guess. 

There's also a brief report on the 7th International Computer Show, the most interesting (meaning laughable) tidbit being the 286 PC emulator board for the Falcon. Yeah, it was planned to be cheap (£200), but a 286 in 1993? In the PC world by this time, the 386 was making way to it's more advanced successor, and of the big name manufacturers in the UK market, only Amstrad, IBM and Olivetti still had some bargain basement 286's for sale. 

A brief round up of the latest software available for the Falcon proved that some people were trying with the 32-bit wonder machine even if Atari really weren't, before we get to the first of the features: using your ST for productivity purposes. Word processing, programming, desktop publishing, and music are just some of the uses still valid for your 16-bitter, and the following round up of external floppy disk drives would have been handy for both serious and leisure users, given that multi-disk games were very much a fact of life now. Only one drive was high density capable, but it cost nearly twice as much as the double density competition and was only suitable for Mega STE and TT owners. 

We detour through some gaming guides and a platformer round up before reaching the STFM future feature. It's all spun very positively for the audience, maybe to cheer them up as they see their favourite computer fall behind. There's a funny little graph focussing on Gallup reported software sales, with the ST coming out on top with 5.7% of total software sales in 1992. The other formats featured include Amstrad's then out of production CPC on 3.9%, Atari's own Lynx at 0.7%, Sega's Gamegear (which had only been out since April 1991) at 4.4%, the NES at 4.6% and the SNES at 3.7%. Considering the latter arrived in the UK in April '92, I'm not sure the graph passes even the most cursory of examinations, and what about the other 77%? 

A second graph showing ST sales over the years is another "awww, bless" moment, and, you know what, good on ST Format for trying. I mean, this initiative would go nowhere, and the ST would effectively be abandoned before the year was out, but you've got to admire the optimism. It's not all one sided happy clapping, and the comments from devs and retailers are extremely telling, with one HMV sales rep saying that in some stores, Mac software was outselling ST offerings. Ouch!

Still, there would be a follow up piece in the next issue, but that does not concern us today. Instead, to the games!

Civilization racks up a deserved 92%, whereas AV8B Harrier Assault falters with 62%. The Greatest, a compilation featuring Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker, Lure of the Temptress and Shuttle (talk about varied), scores 91% despite the latter title really not matching the quality of the other two. Six other games are also rated, with No Second Prize reaching the heights of 87%, and Wild Streets plumbing the depths with 38%. Nine reviews in total. Meanwhile, in the corresponding Amiga Format, there were 9 full-price reviews (including Lemmings 2, Walker, B-17 Flying Fortress and Chuck Rock 2), 9 budget offerings and two compilations. Intriguingly, the Amiga version of The Greatest swaps Shuttle for Dune, and I think Amiga owners scored there. 

Back to the ST, and there's serious software too. Desktop Publishing stalwart Calamus has a new version, Calamus S, achieving a 91% score, 3D Construction Kit 2 almost matches it at 90%, and Convector Professional 1.00J slightly disappoints with 75% but gains kudos for the Airplane gag in the review title. 

Canon leads the way with hardware, its BJ-200 bubblejet printer rating an excellent 92% (albeit for £468.83!), whereas Spectravideo's Freewheel steering wheel only manages a steady 76%. A duo of screens finish off the hardware, both with scores in the 70's. Silica Systems were flogging a Viewtek 12" greyscale option for £69, and comes across as a great medium resolution mono option. Gasteiner, however, want £149 for their 14" VGA mono offering, which the mag thinks is a tad over-priced for a high res option, but nonetheless not too shabby. 

Several pages of Public Domain software follow up, as do tutorials for Crack Art (an art package which desperately requires rebranding), and assembly programming. The usual letters page provides company to a readers art gallery section, before we hit the final page and obligatory humorous End Zone. 

And now, a break for commercials:

The First Computer Centre has pride of place as soon as you open the mag and they'd see you right for your ST hardware needs. A barebones Falcon would set you back just under £600, but a useable spec would bump that to nearly a grand! Not to labour the point, but in the DOS world, that dosh would get you a well-specc'd 386 and another £50 to £100 would guarantee a 486/25 with the same amount of RAM but double the hard drive space. 

If funds were more limited, the existing STE range would be yours for £229, although bumping the RAM to at least 1 meg was advisable. The 1040 Family Pack looked a bit better for those wanting to do more than just play games. 

Other formats were available too, starting with the Amiga, and the fact that the A500 Plus was still being advertised (as well as being £50 cheaper than the "better" A600), shows that the big C really fucked up the low-end switch. There isn't an HD-free A1200 though (maybe trying to shift the remaining 68000-based stock or get Falcons out of the door?), but you could ask about Archimedes pricing, which at this point would have meant the A3010 or maybe the A4000... And let's not forget about consoles - that Mega Drive plus Sonic or Olympic Gold for £125. Bargain for the time, and a sign that no matter how cheap the ST could do, if it was just games that kids were interested in, consoles were the better option for most.

There's a wide array of printers too, from the evergreen Star LC20 to more heavy duty laser options, and at those prices, you really needed a genuine use case to buy one. Finally, for those of a professional bent (or just wanting something better than a TV), the selection of monitors reveals the period defining Philips CM8833 in its Mk2 guise, as well as a couple of high-res mono monitors.

Special Reserve have a couple of pages dedicated to their ST wares, and there's many a worthy title on offer. Quite a few under a tenner too, and that Lynx 2 appealed to me back then, even though I never had the cash to spare at the time. What is interesting is that they don't have any actual Atari computers to sell. Some accessories, disks and the like, but no ST hardware. Hmmm...

Ladbroke Computing were, however, another hardware dealer and they could set you up with a 520 STE for £219. Ok, so a few quid cheaper than The First Computer Centre, but you have to wonder what exactly were the profit margins when a punter walked away with a box, but there again...

The newsworthy Gasteiner were cheaper still, with the base STE at just £209, and that 4/65 spec Falcon for £899! You'd still need a monitor on top of that to get the best out of the Falcon, and that would have taken the overall package well into 486 territory. 

Rubysoft have a dual-format software listing advert, with ST and Amiga versions listed where appropriate. This was not necessarily a good thing as it highlights exactly which games you couldn't buy on your favourite home computer. There again, you'd already have some idea of that by this point just by rocking up to your local games store... when such things existed. 

Eagle Software are another games retailer, although this time with a focus on ST-only releases. As you can see (possibly with the aid of a magnifying glass), the ST library was large and varied, so even new buyers in 1993 would have had a good array to choose from. Not many new games, granted, but a hefty back catalogue. 

Naturally, it wouldn't be a 1990's magazine without a Silica ad, and here they show off the main sellers Atari were offering. Not the cheapest by any means (see above), at least the adverts were packed with information which would help those all important buying deliberations. 

So there we have ST Format. Still kicking with 108 pages in total, and an ABC of 62,210 (July to December 1992). That ABC was down from a high of 70,258 in early 1991, dipping to 65,202 in the second half of that year, rising slightly to 69,059 in early 1992. However, this particular issue would be in the 52,810 bracket, and as the ST's fortunes declined, so did this magazine's readership. Nothing new there, and although the final ABC figures were for the second half of 1995 stated a circulation of 14,379 readers, the mag itself last until its September 1996 issue, by which point it had outlived the ST, the Jaguar and Atari themselves. No shame there, and a good run for the Future-published periodical. 

Where to next, I wonder...

The Game Boy Encyclopedia by Chris Scullion - Book Review

In a (very slight) sense, I have an understanding of what Chris Scullion goes through when he writes one of his (up until now) annual gaming encyclopedias. This is the sixth of his platform specific volumes (alongside his excellent tome on platformers), and having to summarise and provide commentary on literally hundreds of games, often with multiple entries per series, has to be quite the challenge. My appreciation stems from having to say, for the seventh time, I'm writing about how yet again yer man has only gone and written an absolute belter!

Comprising of some 320 pages covering around 1,150 releases in total across the Game Boy and Game Boy Color handhelds, that's a ton of games playing and research, and when you're talking about a platform that released 35 years ago, the effort that's gone into this is immense. 

This monster of a book is a detailed and information packed repository of all games Game Boy. Given the sheer amount to cover, only a handful of entries receive a half page (it's pretty much all a quarter page per title), so this focusses your attention on Mr Scullion's ability to pithily pass on pertinent pointers (say that five times quickly!), facts, anecdotes, as well as include some nice word play (I see you, Fire Fighter) without sounding like a cynical QA tester completing their monthly one to one review documents... As ever, fun facts remain a funky addition to the main text. 

Each entry receives a screenshot, and you can rest easy. The use of an Analogue Pocket means that each game's visuals are pin sharp with nary a hint of blurriness. This also highlights that, at it's best, the original Game Boy was capable of some truly wondrous feats for such a limited technical spec. Going back and playing Batman: The Video Game on my original Game Boy (still rocking after all these years) and then doing the same on an emulator was revelatory. Sadly to say, these late '70's vintage eyes are no longer up to the challenge of genuine hardware these days. As for the Game Boy Color section, it's visuals vibrantly pop off every page. 

Any criticisms? None at all. This book does exactly what it says on the cover and it does it bloody well too!

The Game Boy Encyclopedia is another further fine addition to my gaming library and another volume Mr Scullion and the team at White Owl Books should be proud of. You can pick up a copy direct from the publisher here, your favourite online book stores, as well as physical shops too - I know Newcastle Upon Tyne's Waterstones has had stock in, and I'm sure Forbidden Planet had it too. You can also follow the author on Twitter/X @Scully1888, and on Bluesky @scully1888.bsky.social. And on a final note, there's going to be a two year gap before the next in the series, but considering that one's covering the Sony PlayStation, the wait is both necessary and more than worth it. I'll be ready and waiting for the direct ordering email, Mr. S!

The Mysteries of Monkey Island by Nicolas Deneschau - Book Review

Ah, the Point and Click Adventure. A genre I've loved ever since the days of my Amiga 500, a genre I still love to this day (my 12th P&C adventure review for Fusion is in issue 61 and there's a couple more on the way for them too, demonstrating how vibrant the form is to this day, especially amongst Indie developers), and one where my first steps were taken on Melee Island. This is where Nicolas Deneschau's 300-plus page opus from Third Editions comes in. 

If you've ever wanted to know the history of the seminal series in one place, then this is the book for you. You'll first notice the high quality of the book itself - a hefty tome with a clean presentation and well spaced text. There are few illustrations, but those that are included are top notch and fit the subject perfectly, and a foreword is provided by Larry Ahern, co-director of Curse of Monkey Island.

The layout of the tale is pretty straightforward, gently easing the reader in with a potted history of Lucasfilm Games, the move to point and click adventures, and the creation of the SCUMM engine. From there, each title is detailed in chronological order, with cursive text boxouts offering Guybrush's diary of what occurred in each release. 

From the beginning, there is very much a personal angle from the author, and as a long time M.I. player, that approach resonated highly with me. This isn't just a history of the games themselves, but also of the state of gaming at the time, how people played games back then (disk swapping, urghhh), and how the market changed as the series evolved. 

Much research has been carried out and there are numerous footnotes pointing you to original sources. The author also uses footnotes to relate personal experiences and commentary. Many of these are funny, if not down right hilarious and adds greatly to the overall personality permeating the writing. 

There is plenty to learn here, especially about the movie adaptation that was once mooted, and of course the story doesn't end with the third game, Curse of Monkey Island. No, from there we move on to the Telltale Games entries and beyond, finishing with the most recent of the series, Return to Monkey Island. All the while, the narrative is interwoven with quotes and amusing bon mots, and it's almost a shame when you reach the last of the main chapters, as you realise that you've more than enjoyed the company of Nicholas. That also draws attention to the quality of the translation: it is superb!

Four appendices finish proceedings off: the first details the insult fighting replies from the first game, the second offers potted biographies of key individuals, the third lists the classic adventure games from LucasArts, and the fourth contains the lyrics to "Plank of Love".

This was the first book from Third Editions that I'd heard of, courtesy of a tweet from Konstantinos Dimopoulos of Virtual Cities fame. Having checked out the other titles from the publisher list at the back of this volume, and having enjoyed this one so much, is it any surprise that I ordered another book from them, this one heading for Uncharted territory...

You can pick up a copy of this and other Third Edition books from Amazon. Bear in mind that as a UK customer, there is a bit of a wait between ordering and delivery but such is the way of things, and it would be a shame for anyone to miss out on such a well written, heartening narrative of one of the best games series ever created. You can also follow the author on X - @Nicozilla_FR.

A review of this recent arrival will also be coming soon (well, as soon as I've read it...).

Magazines of Yesteryear - The Mac - Volume 5 Number 1 - January 1997

Mac Kit to Die For??? Maybe, but given this issue of The Mac hit the streets in early December 1996, maybe it should have read "Mac Kit Apple is dying from!" You'll understand why once we get to the ads...

The news pages lead with the triumphant announcement that Apple had returned to the black in its final quarter of the 1996 financial year. The piece states a $25m profit against expectations, which when you consider the Q2 loss of $700m, combined with a Q3 loss of $34m, any positive number was a good thing. CEO Gil Amelio had previously boasted that Apple would by out of the red by Q2 '97, so they were early achieving that. However, revenues were collapsing and the 1996 as a whole would see losses totalling $816m. That, gentle reader, was just a taster. It's no great spoiler that Apple's '97 expectations were hammered with a loss of over $1bn, before a turnaround in '98 with a $309m profit. Fear not, fans of fruit based computing, they made a profit of $96.995bn in 2023. As Mr Watson warbled, "It's been a long road..."

Also in the news was Apple's desire to double growth (uh-oh...), as well as ongoing confusion of Apple's OS issues. Apple had also cut 65% of its authorised reseller network which shocked no one as there were plans for Apple to open its own retail stores. That didn't pan out (you can guess why), with the first Apple Store only opening in the US in 2001. The UK got its first Apple Store in 2004. 

Internet Explorer 3.0 (those were really not the days, my friends, I'm glad they did end), was now available to Mac users, as was the link kit to connect Palm Pilots to Macs. Having written about Palm PDA's both here and in Pixel Addict, all I can reiterate is that they were brilliant devices for their time. Meanwhile, Iomega were planning a new compact storage format that could fit a 20Mb on a 5cm by 5cm cartridge. Heady tech for the time (seriously), this product was crying out for a cross-marketing campaign about N*Sync-ing your data via your N*Hand cart. My talents are wasted, honestly...

Reviews next and first up we have FreeHand 7, rated "the best drawing tool available", which probably validated its price tags of £450 and £646.25, depending on which add-on it was bundled with. 

Apple's latest Power Mac, the 4400 comes under the spotlight and come just over the grand mark (£1,056 inclusive of VAT, £899 ex). A score of 4/5 is pretty good, and for the time that was a reasonable ask. As technology advanced to new generations of processors, the asking price of a decent machine rose. By late 1996, the idea of a general home computer for less than £500 was having a rest as the rise of advanced new processors (Pentium, PowerPC and StrongARM) meant that new desktops had settled around the £1,000 mark, albeit temporarily as the latter half of the decade saw prices (in the Windows world at least) tumble - all helped by the tussle between AMD and Intel. 

More Apple kits gets the once over with what appear to be advanced looks at the MessagePad 2000 and the eMate 300. Let's get this clear: by this point, the Newton had matured into a reasonably capable platform if you wanted to have computing on the go without the bulk of a laptop. Sure, smartphone users today will fall about laughing at the size of the revised PDA but for the time, this was serious kit. The StrongARM SA-110 was a powerful leg up for processing power, and the software offering was in a much better place compared to the original Newton. That being said, with an expected price of around £750, it was still a ton (or several) of money for something that merely acted as an extension of the desktop/laptop experience. 

Not so the eMate 300, and I have to admit that this piece of portable tech was something I really wanted to get my hands on back in the day. Effectively placing a Newton into a laptop style case, the idea was sound, even if the size of it was off-putting for school use. Compare the eMate to the Alphasmart range of devices. The latter were smaller, lighter, lasted longer and were more suited to being mishandled by children. They were also cheaper, an important consideration when it comes to bulk buying. Still, the eMate was a sexy bit of kit and its failure was not down to the concept. The execution was ok, but Apple, being Apple, decided it was for education only and missed an opportunity to widen the user base. But hey, this was mid-90's Apple, it was a shit show anyway...

Games reviews kick off with Actua Soccer for footie fans, and Marathon Infinity from Bungie. Considered flawed and the weakest of the Marathon trilogy, Bungie would move on to other things, including an eventually un-released real time strategy title codenamed Monkey Nuts, eventually morphing into the original Xbox launch title (and all-round classic, Halo: Combat Evolved). 

There's also a review of Avara, an online multiplayer shooter that, whilst looking basic, appears to have neatly given gamers a taste of fighting the world. Well, as long as you had at least a 28.8kps modem. 14.4kps was a tad slow, and even the higher speed option could struggle with lots of players! Early days, people, early days. 

Zork Nemesis would keep adventure fans happy, and MechWarrior 2 proves that ports from DOS can work on the Mac, and be the better for it. 

An end of year issue is never the same without the Reader's Awards section and it's no surprise that Apple win the Mac Manufacturer of the Year award. Ok, that sounded sassy, but the clones were beginning to make themselves known on the market and, as noted above, would not help keep Apple afloat. Demon Internet (remember them? Ah, the good old days) won Internet Service Provider of the Year, Netscape Navigator best Internet Software, and the Iomega Zip for Best Storage Device. 

There is a "How to buy a Mac" guide that is a time capsule of how things used to be when buying a computer, though the near-traditional advice of "use a credit card if you can" still rings true to this day.

A round up of 17-inch monitors is guaranteed to take your breath away, and not only for the prices (the Applevision 1710 at £830 inc VAT was cheap for a Trinitron tube, but expensive in this round up), but also for their weight. The 1710 came in at 49lbs (22.2Kg) for a tube that could give you 1280x1024 at 75Hz. Good spec and picture quality, but this was not something you moved around much. The 1710 takes away the Not So Cheapo Editor's Award, whilst the £527 CTX 1765D snags the El Cheapo prize. 

A proper "how quaint" moment now with coverage of the DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) format. Very early days here for the wonder disc format but it would prove successful. I can still remember popping into Dixons in Kingston Upon Thames in 1997 and seeing a player for sale with five movies (the only five at the time, I think), with naff all change from a grand. As an impoverished student (who'd blown a fair chunk of his student loan on an N64 and Turok!), all I could do was gaze in wonder. 

The how to guides section gives us advice on Self Assessment completion for your tax concerns (yay?), and how to sort your travel plans on The Net. Such a charming term, The Net, redolent of dial up modems and eye-shrivelling website design. There's even a box out on finding your search engine first: Alta Vista was apparently the fastest, but Yahoo and Lycos were easier to use. Compare and contrast to the absolute shit show that is Google these days... Yeah, if there was ever yet another example of how the drive for greater revenues fucked things up, Google search is up there with the most egregious. 

e.Zone takes a look at the online goings on, the highlight being an interview with William Gibson. There's chat around his then-new book, Idoru, and his love on the Mac, although he believes his next Mac would be a clone. It might have been, but the next one after that would have been a Cupertino original. 

A guide on how to succeed at Warcraft II is followed by some Q&A pages, before the buyers guide takes up pretty much the rest of the remaining pages. As is decreed in the ancient by-laws of computing magazines, the final page is a humorous look at the year just gone, and rather funny it is too. 

(Deep breath)

So..... Apple wasn't in great shape as the count down clock to Millenium Armageddon hit 36 months, and if you want a reason why, I give you this page from Apple dealer, Gordon Harwood:

Can you see what I mean? Which model? Which spec? 

Let's say you have £1,500 to spend on a Mac, and yes, I know, that was a lot of money in 1996/7, but the nature of computing had pushed prices up between 1994 and 1997 as new processor tech and add-ons like CD-ROM drives, graphics cards and modems arrived. Every format saw spec/cost inflation in the middle of the decade, and £1,000 seemed to become the de facto entry point. For this example, you have £1,500 which, as a consumer, meant £1,275 before VAT. 

Now let's check out what GH could offer. That Performa 5320 with a 15" built-in monitor looks decent, although the printer bundle would take you just over your budget. But wait! The Performa 6320 doesn't include a monitor as standard, but the bundle with a 15' doofer (minus the multimedia TV shenanigans) was yours for £1,280 and you got a keyboard with it. More RAM too, but no modem, but you still had cash to spare. Why the emphasis on the keyboard inclusion? Look closely, and you'll see that the very cheapest of each of the Performa ranges (5320 excluded) do not include a tactile terror. Nor a monitor, come to think of it, so yeah, the initial price looks cheap for a Mac, but to actually buy a usable desktop? That 6320, starting at just £799 ex VAT. Nope. That'd be £1,089 ex for something you could use out of the box, and to be honest, you'd spend the extra forty odd quid on the 15" option. 

You could argue that Apple were merely catering for all possible users, so upgrading peeps might already have a monitor and keyboard. You could also say that they were nickel and diming the customer in order for their good to appear cheaper. A mix of both maybe? Not that it matters now, but it does hark back slightly to PC box builders in the first half of that decade advertising machines without an OS. It knocked anywhere between £50 and £100 off the headline price and was only noted in the "optional extras" section. An operating system... optional...? That practice soon ended. However, if they could make "A.I." optional in modern OS's, that would be just great, thanks. Unless they can make it genuinely useful and not just some data slurping funny picture generating boondoggle. Alas, I fear not. 

A Powerbook was just within reach - ok, maybe a couple of quid over, but a Power Mac was also just about do-able if you took the very base option, as you didn't get a keyboard or a mouse. Going back a couple of paragraphs: really, who the actual fuck ships a grand and half computer without a f-ing keyboard? 

Anyway, on to Computer Warehouse and the really damning evidence of why Apple was two steps away from Destination F*cked. The first two pages concentrate on the top of the range clones from Power Computing. These were often as not as expensive as the equivalent Apple product, but they were also often faster and offered greater expansion opportunities. Not see the threat yet?

How about mid-range, and the Power Center 132MHz 604, 16MB RAM, 1GB hard drive and 4x CD drive. No monitor or keyboard, but yours for £1,499 ex. A couple of pages on, Dabs Direct had Apple's equivalent, the Power Mac 7600/132 (1.2GB drive and 8x CD) for £1,649 ex. That £150 could go a long way, even with the slightly lower storage and slower CD drive. And yes, it gets worse. 

Switching to Dabs Direct, the full Mac range from Apple is here, as are the clones from Umax. If money was really tight, then Umax could do you proud with it's range, starting at £799 ex. You could argue semantics about value and mandatory add-ons, but the point here is that Apple, whose bread and butter was computing at the time, was in direct competition with box builders who could sell roughly the same kit but cheaper. 

There was another fly in the ointment: confusion. Check out MacLine. On the page to your left, a goodly selection of Mac models, bundles and offers - but only a selection. On the right, the Umax offering. ALL OF THEM. Two ranges, three models a piece, offering six separate price points, each easily discernible from the others. Now look back at what Apple were trying to hoof out of the door. It's a mess. You had ads featuring the Performa 5200 5260, 5300, 5320, 5400, 6320, 6400, and as for the Power Macs, there were the 4400, 7200, 7600, 8200, 8500, and 9500 models. Never mind the different configs per model, the number of models was mind-boggling. 

Just to hammer the point home, even the buyer's guide notes how great the value is with the clones. In the sub-£2,000 bracket, clones outnumber Apple machines by 9 to 5, it's evens in the £2-3k range, and Apple are dwarfed by 10 to 2 in the £3k plus spectrum. In each area, Apple was having to fight to retain any semblance of value for money, especially against Umax, and that's not what the clones were meant to do.

It wasn't all hardware though, with MacGold Direct sorting you out for software, including a rather impressive range of games and entertainment titles. 

And that's it for The Mac in 1996. Bit of a weird one, and not just because of the fashion on show (or the full page ad for Maxim magazine...), given that on the surface it looked like things were getting better for Mac users, but in actual fact, the platform was close to dying simply because the host organism was unable to do the one job it really had to do. It would take a year or two and a lot of red ink, but Apple would turn things around, surprisingly so. But that never happened for the format I'll cover in the next MOYY. 

The more tame section of mid-90's fashion.