Anna Black

I love computer magazines from the 1980′s.

I love them. I adore them. I have many many boxes and boxes of them. I use doubles as blankets and wallpaper. They are my friends.

I collect them. They are history. The reviews, the adverts, the nostalgic hair, Clive Sinclair, and those type in games with mistakes in the data listings. I love them. Not entirely sure why. But I do. Deeply.

There is nothing quite like holding in your hand a copy of Commodore User from 1986 and reading it as originally intended – with a torch hiding under the stairs from kids with tennis racquets – but I digress.

It takes me back to the days of grey when telephones were tied to the wall and the internet was something you caught sticklebacks with. The stunning glossy arty front covers, the ink thumbed paper creases between your sweaty fingers, and the all time argument of which is the finest 1980′s micro – the Speccy,  BBC Micro, Amstrad, Commodore 64 or Regali 500?

Now in 2013, thanks to the tireless hours of scanning and archive work by many fabulous people around the world, you can read a lot of these magazines/books online, or download them to read, e.g. archive.org/details/computermagazines

Inspired, from within my centrigloo of magazinabrick, I’ve now begun to archive some of the bits and bobs in my rather silly retro micro collection (there are more cassette tapes than biscuits in my house) which may not be readily available online or anywhere.  So for starters, after checking the the wonderful “World Of Spectrum” I find that I have Issues 2 and 3 of “Sinclair And Sam Computing” which are missing from the archive.

Hurrah! *click whirrrrrr!* My friendly peripheral Canon Von Scone have begun to scun.

Please find PDF versions below…

Sinclair & Sam Computing – Issue 2 (PDF 56.3 MB) <pages 31-34 pages are missing> *
Sinclair & Sam Computing – Issue 3 (PDF 46.8 MB) <pages 39-42 pages are missing> *

Right click and save to grab. I’ll upload the original jpg’s to the WOS archive shortly.
EDIT – The full .jpg’s are now available to download from the World Of Spectrum archive.

So, perhaps if you have any “retro things of a micro computer nature” don’t assume it’s saved somewhere. You may have the only copy in the world! Save and share some micro computer history and care deeply for the real things. They are our friends!

Anna x

p.s. I will do a little thing soon about de-musting magazines and books. It involves carrier bags.

p.p.s. Did anyone own a Sam Coupé? EDIT – Please see samcoupe.com for more information about the amazing ongoing development for this micro!

* Not sure if the pages missing were actually originally printed in the magazine as they appear intact at the spine. If there is print missing at the sides or faded in the printing that’s exactly the same as the original material.