Magazines of Yesteryear - Computer Shopper Issue 73 - March 1994

This is more like it. Nobody wants a skinny computer magazine. They want great big back breaking telephone directory-style periodicals that not only inform and entertain, but can also be used in self-defence, either to hit someone with or to stop small calibre bullets. This, gentle reader, is the pinnacle of such publications - the one, the only, Computer Shopper (UK). 

It's early 1994 and to all intents and purposes, the 386 is dead, long live the 486! The Pentium is faltering onto the stage albeit at prices that would make your eyes water, while portables are now most definitely mainstream as evidenced by the group test advertised on the front cover, pitting 21 of the mobile(ish) wonders against each other with a starting price of £799. But what else does this fine 600 page(!) issue have in store?

Quite a bit. The notebook test is front and centre but there are also group tests of presentation software and accelerator cards for Windows. Features cover music software, computers and the cops, and Super Computers. Don't get all excited though, the article merely discusses the architectural changes that were on offer and how they might affect future high performance computing. The usual departments are present and correct, as well as the format specific Shopper columns for Mac, Amiga, ST and Archimedes. 

I keep reading the second story as Kenco...

The first news piece reports an autumn release for Chicago. Aka Windows 4 (and eventually Windows 95), this replacement for 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups would see the big M put on its best razzle dazzle to hammer home the point that Windows PC's were for everyone. In other news, Elonex (remember them before they became a purveyor of cheap electronic trash before finally going bust?) were getting into the NeXTStep market with workstations running NeXTStep 3.2. A bold move (with even more bold sales targets of 20,000 machines across Europe in the first twelve months), it's no spoiler to say that it wasn't the success that they thought it would be. Two years later, Apple would buy NeXT to form the basis of what would become Mac OS X.

Speaking of Apple, they were about to launch their eWorld service. A gated community back in the early days of the web, it is the pricing structure that amuses more than anything else. For $8.95 per month, Apple would give you two free hours of use, with each subsequent hour costing $4.95. The very thought of paying by the hour to use the web! The past is a different country and all that...

Finally, there's news that Olivetti will become the sole European distributor of AT&T's EO 440 tablet. Larger than an Apple Newton (and that's saying something), this 10.8 x 7.1 x 0.9 inch device would set you back £1,999 then but at least offered a 7.5 inch mono display and a built in 14.4 modem. 

EO, EO, work on the move with the built-in modem.

To the cover group test and the rise of the truly useful portable PC. They do highlight the Amstrad alternatives (the NC200  being a handy desktop companion, although my preference was always for the NC100 as noted here), and you didn't need to spend megabucks on mobile productivity. In this group, only two machines managed to make it under the all important psychological £1,000 ex VAT barrier - the 386XL-powered Triumph Adler Walkstation 3/25 XL at £799, and the Mitac 4020F at £999. That £200 difference is telling, as the Mitac rocks a 25MHz 486 SX, double the RAM of the TA to 4MB whilst each pack an 85MB hard drive and mono display. Indeed, the Mitac gets the best buy. Other names you might reacll from the period include Watford Electronics with their Aries Perfecta 3300NB, AST's Bravo NB Color, Canon's BN22 BJ notebook with built in printer (those were the days, my friends), and Compaq's Contura 4/25C - still a lovely looking lappy!. 

Handy company info included - and a helpful review layout. 

Hewlett Packard, Olivertti, Panasonic, IBM and Toshiba are other big names here, with big prices to match. Most of these machines include DOS (a couple don't, wanting something like £65 to £99 extra but they'll chuck in a mouse and Windows too), but even the budget TA includes DOS and Win as standard. Only four have 386 processors, the rest coming with a variety of Intel, Cyrix or Texas Instruments 486's. A couple offer 2MB of RAM, the rest provide 4MB, whilst mass storage ranges from 85MB to 200MB, the sole exception being HP's Omnibook 425 which has 10MB of flash storage. And as for colour, well, you'd need a good credit card or deep pockets - the cheapest dual-scan display is the Watford Perfecta's and that machine comes in at £1,500. Active matrix (faster refresh rate, little ghosting and far more vibrant) is epitomised by the Enta NB 6500T for £2,350, and they wanted another £99 for DOS and Windows!

The Shopper columns were always worth a read, and this issue proves no less entertaining. Amiga Shopper looks at Deluxe Music 2.0, coupled with a report on an Amiga party in Topeka Kansas, featuring the team from NewTek. If you remember Babylon 5 or seaQuest DSV, you'll know what their software could do. A Silica advert on the page opposite details the then current Amiga range and just how little you could spend to get an A600 for (if you actually wanted one). £189 for the base machine was really cheap, your bog-standard A1200 was £299 but with many more upgrade options, and the A4000 could be yours for £899, although a more usable configuration would be £999 - and then the monitor on top. You could buy a similarly spec'd Mac LC III for less. That's how competitive Commodore weren't by this point. Oh, and the CD32 was £289. Nice try, Commodore, but the Sony PlayStation would arrive in Japan that December and would easily demonstrate its superior technical chops. 

Atari Shopper talks about the benefits of adding 8MB to an STE (more for use as a Ram disk than anything else), as well as talking about Geneva, a multi-tasking upgrade for Tos, whilst Archimedes Shopper looks at new Archie game Spheres of Chaos and a round up of news. 

The Viglen range - they could have been Contenders... (badum tss!)

It is, however, Macintosh Shopper that is the highlight. MacBiter casts a jaundiced eye over the announcement that Apple would move to the Power PC architecture. To say the author was a tad cynical about Apple's behaviour would be an understatement but he also had a point. No matter how much ill-will you had towards the fruity tinkers in Cupertino, you usually ended up shelling out for their kit anyway. And so it would prove...

Compaq Contura bottom left - a snazzy looking laptop, and the CDS to its right.

As this is Shopper though, it is the adverts that take up most of the page count, as well as providing a handy guide to the state of the DOS/Windows market of the time. 

As noted above, the 486 rules, with only a few hardy box sellers shipping 386 desktops (although 386 laptops are a tad more common). Reeves would happily sell you a 40MHz 386 SX with 2 meg of RAM and a 125MB hard drive for £539 ex. That doesn't include an operating system though. Watford Electronics would do you a similar 2 meg machine with a 170MB hard drive and a software budle for £735 ex. 

Amstrad were still (just) in the market. Time Computer Systems offered a 486SX 25MHz model (4/214MB) for £897 ex VAT, which isn't bad but demonstrates that the once prolific budget box builder was now priced alongside almost every other clone maker out there. Hell, Time were clearing out IBM stock, with a 486 25MHz SX 2/85MB for £699 ex. Alongside IBM were the Ambra range of machines - Ambra being a consumer mail order focused spin off from IBM. Their Sprinta II range was competitively priced too - that ever so familiar 25MHz 486 with a 100MB hard drive for £799. 

They look different, but they are from the same company.

As you can tell, the 386 was your very budget option and very poor value for money considering the benefits of the 486, all the more so when you considered Multimedia! It was the future and there were numerous deals on adding CD-ROM drives. Compaq's Presario CDS625 all-in-one promised a tidy little set up (minus much in the way of expansion options) for £1,375, and it seemed to be that if you were canny enough, a CD-equipped 486 could be yours for just under a grand but really you needed to budget between £1k and 1.5K to get the most balanced set up. 

Toshiba were still masters of the laptop market, featuring prominently with resellers, and even one or two of the latter were offering Macs - LC II's and 475's took care of the lower end of the market for £528 to £849 ex VAT from Novatech, while the more capable Quadra 610 and 650's allowed you to depart with a grand plus of your hard earned cash without a bother.

At this point, Amstrad were way off their game. 

Gateway was plugging its range of machines too - base 486SX 33MHz for £899, Pentium 60 for £1,999 and their non-too shabby looking Handbook 486 for £999. It's a canny looking portable. 

Another dinky little laptop there.

Is that a Lunar Gateway ad? NASA joke for you there, folks. 

Dabs Press were another popular reseller, and tucked away in their listing was the Amstrad Mega PC for £425 - by this point more a curio than a worthy PC/console hybrid. They did, however, offer a decent range of handhelds, and by those I mean Psions and the like. So too did Pico Direct, a retailer who made handhelds their speciality and offered a ton of difference devices. 

Computer Shopper issue 73 shows the DOS/Windows PC at the pinnacle of its 486 journey. There were a growing number of resellers stocking big brands, and there were even more small box builders eager to eke out the thinnest of profit margins, yet it was also the time of decline for the traditional manufacturers too. The likes of Amstrad and IBM were slowly disengaging from the market, becoming just one of many names out there. As for the other computing formats, Atari was wasting away trying to support the Jaguar console and Acorn were making all the right noises but the wider changes to the PC market (multimedia and increasing power at decreasing prices) meant that its glory days were behind it. Apple was looking good, but the approaching launch of Windows 95 and the impression of PC superiority would hurt the company, almost as badly as the cack-handed corporate leadership and the on-going failure to modernise the OS. And as for Commodore, just three months after the publication date of this issue, ol'chicken lips would be bankrupt. 

Against Amstrad, Olivetti's machines had a certain sense of style.

It's always interesting looking at these old magazines. When taken as a whole, they not only inform you of what was happening at the time, but also add flavour to what you learn. Issue 73 was another cracking edition of the then most popular UK computing magazine, but for the next visit to yesteryear, we'll be heading back to the time of the launch of one of my favourite computer formats...

In the meantime, have a great festive/holiday period! I shall be back with more blogging shenanigans in the new year. 

Khalsa! by Andrew Copestake and James Main - Book Review

A recent release from Helion & Co's Helion Wargames series, Khalsa! aims to guide the wargamer along the path of enlightenment to putting soldiers on the table for the Anglo-Sikh Wars of 1845-46 and 1848-49. This isn't a ruleset per se, but it does offer more than the usual "this happened here" run through (essential as that is for historical wargaming). Is it any good though?

Before we continue, cards on the table. I have known Andy for more than 25 years, Jim even longer, and I count them both as very good friends. We have laughed (The Breakfast Pasty Business, The Veggie Burger Vignette - trashy detective novels in the making there!), cried (that two day show on the Yorkshire Coast) and gone through other less noteworthy (but no less funny) shenanigans involving wargames, wargames shows and the odd pint or two over the years. Does this colour my review? I hope not. Neither gent has had sight of this piece before posting, nor have they had any input to it. In addition, I purchased my copy via the Helion and Co website using my own funds.

With that in mind, what do you get for your £29.95? Well, the usual high quality Helion publication coming in at just over 180 pages and in full colour. Aside from the introduction, acknowledgements and timeline, there are eight chapters and three appendices, all finished off with a handy glossary. 

Chapter One provides the reader with an introduction to the rise of the Khalsa, their geographical reach, the types of troops they used, and the composition of the forces they fielded, mercenaries and all. There is more than enough helpful guidance on how they could be portrayed on the table. As is only correct, further historical information can be found in the sources quoted in Appendix A, three pages of which cover additional reading. 

Chapter Two brings us the forces of the Honourable East India Company (not a Ronseal title if you've read much about the corporate entity itself). Again, units and formations are covered, as are notable personages, and how they too could be applied to a game. 

Chapter Three is where the real wargaming fun begins with the battles of the First Anglo-Sikh War. Each action is given maps, orders of battle, and notes on gaming them. Photography of tabletop battles abound, and there is also the occasional illustration from 19th Century sources too (not contemporaneous but suitably period).

Chapter Four covers the Sieges of Multan and Herbert Edwardes' Campaign, before the fifth settles on Sir Hugh Gough's time in the sun from 1848-49. At this point, the commentary deserves a mention. There is little evidence of bias against either side, and where the British were poorly led, they paid the price accordingly. Some battles were close run things, others more accidental in nature, yet their portrayal here should give fine succour to those without even the flimsiest of prior knowledge. And again, if you'd like to know more, Appendix A is very much your friend. 

The Sixth chapter focuses on the colours and uniforms of the various forces, handy for the seventh chapter where a painting guide details the process of putting soldiers of the period onto the table. Each step is concisely written with accompanying imagery, and even my limited painting skills could follow the clarity provided here. 

The final chapter is where the true wargaming potential of the period is scrutinised. Tactics and what ifs set things off, but there are suggestions for the use of umpires (big fan of that approach personally), scenarios (both historical and fictional) as well as amendments that can be applied to a selection of commonly used rulesets for the period. As a side note, when the period was put on the table as a demo game at the recent Battleground Show in Stockton, the terrain modifications listed here were a very useful addition. 

Of the appendices, we have talked of A (ever so useful, I cannot state that enough - if you're partaking in historical wargaming, reading up on the period is essential). B is a suggested list of figures suppliers, whilst C provides several pages of Army lists, noting types of troops and the percentage each provided to the armies of the period. 

I have mentioned the imagery already but it must be said that between both authors' collections and those photographs supplied by Colin Ashton, there is more than enough lead eye candy for even the most cynical of gamers. 

That's it, and a fine publication it is too. There is the odd issue - mainly imagery placement. The black text over an image containing a black flag on page 37 is probably the most egregious example, and that joke on page 19 is possibly too obvious. OK, I am stretching here, but to be fair to the authors, I'd have been terribly disappointed if it hadn't have been made at some point!

Overall, this is another fine Helion & Co publication and one that deserves your attention if the period appeals. Well written, highly informative and a cracking starting point for those wishing to dive into the subject with little or no knowledge (or maybe just as a refresher), you can pick up a copy direct from the publisher here. As a bonus for me, next time we put this period on the table, I might actually know what's going on!

From Vultures to Vampires Volume Three by David John Pleasance and Trevor Dickinson - Book Review

It has arrived. Finally. The culmination of a Kickstarter project that successfully closed on the 19th of July 2020, From Vultures to Vampires Volume Three is not the book that backers originally pledged for. Nope, that particular tome was delivered back in October 2021. The second volume arrived in July this year, and now, after a chase up email prompted by another backer sharing a message from David Pleasance on the original Kickstarter's comments page, here we are. Was it worth the wait?

Short answer is "mostly." For the £33 paid (including delivery), this 326 page book brings us the Amiga (and wider Commodore story, cos you've got to fill that page count somehow) story from 2010 up to 2023, completing the saga begun in those dark days of 1994. It very much follows the pattern set by the first two entries, and you still get some adverts at the back. 

As you can see from the seven chapters, it's a pretty comprehensive coverage of the various initiatives, hardware, and developments that have featured the Amiga (whatever that name actually means now). It's well written for the most part and once again has plenty of imagery. Individuals are evenly handled (as far as I can tell), and whatever your position on the legal fights within the Amiga community, sides are not chosen either way. Basically, if you've got the first two books, the third will be an essential addition and it's an enjoyable read in its own right. But it's not flawless. And neither is the trilogy as a whole.

There is padding, and a fair bit of it. Over the trilogy, there's a ton of imagery, the inclusion of which is questionable. Three pictures of an individual when most just get one (and pictures of some who get literally a one sentence mention). David with a C64 Mini. A Philips CDi. And the focus on side products (C64 Mini, the MEGA65 and general FPGA devices) means that, since the authors announced volume two (and later the third one), it feels like a serious effort has been made to bulk things up a bit. Let us not forget the adverts at the back either. 

And that really is the crux of this review. This book works, but I really do question the need for a trilogy. Yeah, they started the Kickstarter saying that they were planning one book, but to over shoot the expected page count by two and a half times is quite the feat. If you cut out the ads, extra pictures (as noted above, and the tangents to the story - do we need to know about Penti Kouri's son, or the City of Kent Arena that wasn't even built until way after Amiga's involvement?), then I can see a way that this could, with proper planning, have been a two book set. And yes, gentle reader, this does sour my opinion of the trilogy and the authors slightly. 

My original Kickstarter pledge was for £30 plus £6 p&p, which ended up totalling £93.50. If I'd known that the total price would nearly triple over three years, I probably wouldn't have pledged. But once caught up in it, I went along with the ride, and thus became one of the many enablers of the odyssey. Oh, I have three in-depth and informative books, it's just that if I'm going to pay for something, I'd really like to know upfront the total price. Maybe this was an experiment for Books As A Service? No-one tell John Riccitiello!

But seriously, after a couple of years of drip fed updates, requests for extra cash outside of the initial funding process, and some downright weird behaviour (asking backers to complete a spreadsheet via Facebook was a new one for me), all three books are here, even if there had to be a final chase up at the end. Pointer for future projects David: wherever you announce updates, use the original platform too and don't rely on backers to share your communications. 

Anyway, a rant or two ago, I said that if you had the first two volumes, then this is an essential addition. But what if you're coming to this without any prior buy in? Should you? Well, that's up to you, but since each volume retails for £35 plus p&p on top (£6 per book for UK buyers, more for outside the UK), putting aside the above rants, then no, I wouldn't recommend them. £35 is at the upper end of niche, and if you choose all three, then £105 plus £18 p&p is a huge chunk of change. You could comfort yourself with the cheaper ebook option (which I know required work to design but carry zero on-going physical costs) which come in at £15 a piece. I'm sorry, but that's robbery. I mean, hey, your book gents, you sell it for what you want, but £45 for three ebooks frankly smells of profiteering, especially considering that their design costs for book one were covered by the Kickstarter, and the follow on books were at the very least partially funded externally of Kickstarter utilising the existing backers. Oh, and at some point, the ebooks will be the only buying option.

It took a long time, but they got there in the end, and this well-produced tome will sit next to its compatriots ready for future reference. If you're interested in getting this volume (or the whole set), David Pleasance has his own website for you to hand money over. But before you do, one final note:

There was going to be a follow up post about the Kickstarter and how things escalated over the last three years, but you know what, David J Pleasance and Trevor Dickinson have finally delivered on the original premise - just over a much longer period and at much greater cost to the backers. I don't agree as to how they've done it, and I am as culpable as any other backer for feeding the money machine, but the books are here. It's been a learning experience to say the least, and I'd be very wary about any future projects the authors wish to crowdfund, as without doubt, out of over thirty or so successful campaigns I have backed over the last three and a half years, this has been the most poorly organised of the lot. 

Curious Video Game Machines by Lewis Packwood - Book Review

Over the last decade, there has been an explosion of interest in the history of video games. This shouldn't be surprising as although the mainstream market is barely passed its fiftieth birthday, it's certainly been eventful, even if it does become a little tiresome when (mainly) US based writers/content creators et al bang on about the Great Video Game Crash of '83 - in the UK and elsewhere, that was a fart in the wind. My point is that many stories have been told about the early days of mass market video games, so is it reasonable to wonder what Lewis Packwood can bring to the discussion with this new release from the White Owl imprint of Pen and Sword Books?

As you peruse the contents page below, you may be thinking, maybe not. After all, the Enterprise 8-bit micro has received a bit of historical interest (from UK retro gaming people at least) so its inclusion here might just be a rinse and repeat chapter. 

But did you know what happened to the Enterprise after it bombed in the UK? Or the second life of the Amiga CD32? Or that the Casio Loopy was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to specifically targeted gaming hardware? And what fresh hell was the Avatar Machine? You'll know exactly what by the time you've finished this book. 

And that's the thing, whereas the subjects covered may be familiar (to a degree) to some, the author's research expands those stories far beyond what you may have already read, seen or heard. It gets better though, as Mr Packwood covers kit that has had little to no mainstream coverage.

A prime example is the Galaksija, Yugoslavia's home built micro that still has a following to this day. Everything in that chapter was a wonder - here is a machine the story of which deserves to be told, and it is told extremely well, as are the stories of the people behind it. Another chapter features the Kimtanktics, an ingenious and highly specialised way to bring the table top war gaming into the high tech of the 1970's. Their inclusion in this book meant that this was the first time I was introduced to either machine.

There are some real gems in here and the author has done a fantastic job in bringing the various computers to life. There are plenty of photographs and screenshots, and yeah, I did head off to YouTube to see some of the games in action - the VHS flight games are... well, of their time... Another bonus was that the chapter on the Barcode Battler not only (belatedly) justified my decision not to ask for one for Christmas thirty years ago, and it also clearly explains the concept of the hardware and of barcodes themselves.

From the foreword provided by Time Extension's Editor-in-Cheif, , to the section on recommended reading and the nine pages of endnotes, Curious Video Game Machines is a highly entertaining read. The author has succeeded brilliantly in shining a light on some of the most obscure gaming machines from the earliest days of the hobby. Some were technical dead ends, others quick money grabs. Yet still more were simply unheard of due to either their country of origin or pure niche appeal. But here, in yet another worthy White Owl publication, you will learn about these, either for the first time or in expanding your understanding of what they achieved. Put simply, if the history of video games interests you in the slightest, you need to pick up a copy of this book.

Speaking of which you can do so directly from the publisher's website, as well as the usual physical and online bookstores. You can also follow the author on X (@LewisPackwood).