{"id":3053,"date":"2024-11-29T17:42:50","date_gmt":"2024-11-29T16:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/?p=3053"},"modified":"2024-11-29T17:43:13","modified_gmt":"2024-11-29T16:43:13","slug":"the-history-of-the-commodore-64-in-twelve-objects-5-zzap64-and-other-magazines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/2024\/11\/29\/the-history-of-the-commodore-64-in-twelve-objects-5-zzap64-and-other-magazines\/","title":{"rendered":"The History of the Commodore 64 in Twelve Objects #5: Zzap!64 and other Magazines"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the occasion of my upcoming book Too Much Fun: The Five Lives of the Commodore 64 Computer<\/a>, I am writing\u00a0<\/em>The History of the Commodore 64 in Twelve Objects, posted weekly from November 1st<\/sup>, 2024:<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Object #5: Zzap!64 and other Magazines<\/h1>\n

On the magazine cover, a spaceship swoops across the glowing city, laser beams across the sky summarily disposing of enemy crafts. Zzap!64<\/em> was the preeminent UK Commodore 64 game magazine, launched in 1985, published until 1994 ( \u201cCommodore Force\u201d in the end), and reanimated as commemorative issues and annuals from 2002 and onwards.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Early covers, by artist Oliver Frey, borrowed from the world of fantasy posters, obviously not referring to the actual images on the computer screen, but to the imagined worlds of games and computers. Frey\u2019s covers often commented on the games reviewed (as in Dropzone<\/em> on this cover).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why magazines? Obviously pre-internet, and absent widespread use of BBSs, magazines were the news sources and the public sphere of games and computers. At launch, Zzap!64<\/em> declared itself to be a pure C64 game magazine free of four things: free of other computers, non-game applications, nerdy programming, and type-in program listings. (All made their way into the magazine over the years.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Loved for its cheeky, very UK irreverence where it is impossible to write even a single image caption without some twist, the magazine promoted its young reviewers, whose cartoon images would appear with speech bubbles, giving personal and sometimes contradicting opinions on games.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Commodore 64 games were usually so challenging as to be impossible \u2013 playtesting was not yet formalized or required \u2013 and especially European magazines regularly published cheat codes in the form of programs and POKEs that would modify the game program, making the games playable and completeable after all.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>US Compute\u2019s Gazette<\/em> (1993-1990\/95) was the magazine for the serious computer user \u2013 accommodating games, yes, but neither giving too much space to game reviews, nor going overboard with technical tricks. I think of Compute\u2019s Gazette<\/em> as the truly respectable of the magazines here.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>German 64\u2019er Magazin<\/em> (1984-1996) was also a general C64 magazine, covering everything from word processors (\u201chow to use the C64 instead of a typewriter\u201d) to music, games, and programming. 64\u2019er<\/em> was far more technical than Zzap!64<\/em> or Compute\u2019s Gazette<\/em>, covering the demoscene, discussing graphical tricks in detail, and featuring classified ads that early on offered clearly pirated software.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As the only viable mass distribution channel for software, 1980s magazines featured interminable program listings for the user to type in, offering free software at the cost of typing and proofreading, but also offering the bonus of learning about programming.<\/p>\n

Magazines were your source for what was going on, for what to buy, how to program, how to talk about the games, and how to cheat.<\/p>\n

What were your favorite magazines?<\/em><\/p>\n

Coming December 6th<\/sup>: Object #6 \u2013 Wizball and other scrolling games<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the occasion of my upcoming book Too Much Fun: The Five Lives of the Commodore 64 Computer, I am writing\u00a0The History of the Commodore 64 in Twelve Objects, posted weekly from November 1st, 2024: Object #5: Zzap!64 and other Magazines On the magazine cover, a spaceship swoops across the glowing city, laser beams across … Continue reading “The History of the Commodore 64 in Twelve Objects #5: Zzap!64 and other Magazines”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c64"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3053"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3066,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions\/3066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}