A British computer magazine was a business: a publisher saw a market, hired a team and sold the result at newsagents. In the socialist countries of the 1980s it worked differently. A computer magazine needed a parent, and the parent was an institution: a youth newspaper, a learned society, an engineers’ federation, even a union for co-operation with the army. Each one names its parent on its masthead. The parent decided whom the magazine was for, and you can see the difference in what its pages cover.
| Magazine | Country | Parent |
|---|---|---|
| Bajtek (1985) | Poland | supplement to the youth daily Sztandar Młodych |
| Mikroklan (1984) | Poland | an insert in the monthly Informatyka, then the publishing house of NOT, the federation of engineering associations |
| Mikroszámítógép Magazin (1983) | Hungary | the John von Neumann Computer Science Society, joined from 1986 to 1988 by the Central Committee of KISZ, the Communist Youth League |
| Mikroprozessortechnik (1987) | East Germany | the Kammer der Technik, the chamber of engineers, under state licence 1710 |
| Mikrobáze (1980s) | Czechoslovakia | the 602nd basic organisation of Svazarm, with the magazine Amatérské radio |
Poland: two parents, two magazines
Poland had two computer magazines from different parents, and they set out to reach different readers.
Bajtek was born in September 1985 as a joint supplement to the youth daily Sztandar Młodych and to Odrodzenie, published by the state press concern RSW “Prasa-Książka-Ruch”. Its first editorial tied it to a national campaign for computer education in schools and gave it a mission: to fight “microcomputer illiteracy”. It wrote for teenagers. The first issue carried a feature on the British game Atic Atac, with a plan of the castle, and a guide to the ZX Spectrum, which Bajtek was still calling Poland’s most popular home computer in 1989.
Mikroklan started earlier and smaller. In 1984 it appeared as an insert in Informatyka, the professional computing monthly. Its first editorial promised readers circuit designs, useful routines, notes on getting more out of their machines and news of the “market situation”: “what, where, for how much”. Microcomputing, it said, was “not only television games” but “a chance of a different quality of life”. Its editor was Andrzej J. Piotrowski, an engineer at the Industrial Institute of Electronics (Przemysłowy Instytut Elektroniki) in Warsaw, and readers sent their news to Informatyka’s office.
In 1986 the publishing house of NOT, the federation of Poland’s engineering and technical associations, took Mikroklan on as a series of its own. The first issue explained why. Thousands of Spectrums and Commodores had reached homes, institutes and workplaces, but “games dominate for now”, and if games stayed their only use, Poland would have bought itself “rather expensive toys”. Much of the new Mikroklan would be reprinted from the West German monthly Micro, through its Austrian edition, and it was printed in Vienna, by Bohmann Druck und Verlag, in a run of 100,000 copies at 200 złotych.
By 1987 Mikroklan had changed course. Its editors wrote that they had begun as “the first and only” promoters of microcomputing in the Polish press, but other publishers now produced large-circulation computer magazines, so Mikroklan would turn to professional equipment and its uses. It would write for the advanced users of professional machines, a group the editors put at between ten and twenty thousand, and for the far larger number who would one day use computers at work. The issue that announced the change ran articles on IBM PC/XT/AT computers and WordStar 2000 and the first part of a Pascal course. Its imprint named the publisher in full: Wydawnictwo Czasopism i Książek Technicznych NOT-SIGMA, the technical periodicals and books house of NOT. Bajtek, the youth paper, kept teaching home computers to schoolchildren; Mikroklan, the engineers’ paper, followed the PC into the office.
Hungary: a learned society, and the youth league
Mikroszámítógép Magazin was the magazine of the Neumann János Számítógéptudományi Társaság, the John von Neumann Computer Science Society. It printed one issue in 1983 and went monthly in 1986. When it asked its readers who they were, in 1984, the largest group among the graduates who replied were schoolteachers, and what they most wanted to know was how to run Sinclair, ABC-80 and Commodore programs on the school computer.
From August 1986 the masthead called it the paper of the society “és a KISZ Központi Bizottság”, and of the Central Committee of KISZ, the Hungarian Communist Youth League, whose publishing company produced it. The youth league’s name came off the masthead in July 1988. For two years the Hungarian magazine had the same kind of parent as Bajtek.
East Germany: the engineers’ chamber
Mikroprozessortechnik began in January 1987, issued by VEB Verlag Technik for the Kammer der Technik, East Germany’s chamber of engineers, under licence number 1710 from the press office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Its first article was a greeting from Felix Meier, the Minister for Electrical Engineering and Electronics, who quoted the targets of the five-year plan. It was written for the people who designed and programmed the country’s computers, and its courses taught C, the dBASE-compatible REDABAS and the K 1810 WM86, a Soviet chip compatible with Intel’s 8086.
Czechoslovakia: a club of the defence union
Mikrobáze came out of Svazarm, the Svaz pro spolupráci s armádou, Czechoslovakia’s union for co-operation with the army. Svazarm also organised the country’s radio amateurs and electronics hobbyists: in the mid-1980s its radio section had about 37,500 members and its electronics section more than 27,000. Its cover called it a joint service of the magazine Amatérské radio and the 602nd basic organisation (ZO) of Svazarm for microcomputer users. The March 1987 issue spelt out its status in one line: published by the 602nd ZO “for the needs of its own members”, not for sale, permitted by the district national committee of Prague 6, in 4,000 copies.
Its responsible editor, Jan Klabal, was also editor-in-chief of Amatérské radio, which Svazarm’s central committee published through the army’s publishing house, Naše vojsko. Amatérské radio printed more than 120,000 copies, and by its own reader survey of 1985 about 35 per cent of its readers were members of Svazarm.
Yugoslavia: newspaper houses
Yugoslavia, outside the Warsaw Pact, shows a different pattern. Its two big computer magazines came from Belgrade’s large publishing houses: Svet kompjutera from the newspaper organisation Politika, and Računari from BIGZ, through its Duga division. They were priced for the general reader, not issued to the members of an association: Računari’s special edition of January 1984 cost 200 dinars, with prices for readers abroad.
Reading the institutional press
The parents left their mark on who wrote and who read. A youth supplement taught schoolchildren and reviewed British games. A learned society’s magazine found its readers among teachers. An engineers’ chamber taught C and database programming to developers, and a club bulletin went only to the club’s members. None of them was a neutral survey of what a country owned, and a single title tells you about its own readers more than about its country.
Sources
- Bajtek no. 1, September 1985: editorial (joint supplement to Sztandar Młodych and Odrodzenie; the national campaign; “analfabetyzm mikrokomputerowy”), masthead (RSW “Prasa-Książka-Ruch”), Atic Atac feature. Bajtek 10/89, pp. 3–5: the ZX Spectrum as Poland’s most popular home computer. See Bajtek.
- Mikroklan (insert in Informatyka), issue 1, 1984: opening editorial (“mikroinformatyka to przecież nie tylko gry telewizyjne”, “co, gdzie, za ile”); editor Andrzej J. Piotrowski of the Przemysłowy Instytut Elektroniki; address for news, Informatyka, ul. Jasna 14/16, Warsaw.
- Mikroklan no. 1, 1986: editorial (the insert of 1984–85; NOT-Sigma’s series from 1986; “dość drogie zabawki”; reprints from Micro through its Austrian edition) and colophon (ISSN 0860-1941; printed by Bohmann Druck und Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Vienna; 100,000 copies; 200 zł; SIGMA, an enterprise of the Naczelna Organizacja Techniczna).
- Mikroklan no. 4, 1987: editorial (the eight-page insert in Informatyka, only three issues in 1986, “pierwsi i jedyni”, the turn to professional equipment, reprints from Micro and Output); contents (IBM PC/XT/AT, Pascal, WordStar 2000); imprint “Wydawnictwo Czasopism i Książek Technicznych NOT-SIGMA, Warszawa 1987”; 100,000 copies, 300 zł.
- Mikroklan no. 2 (14), February 1988: masthead (“Magazyn informatyczny”, ISSN 0860-1941; publisher Wydawnictwo Czasopism i Książek Technicznych SIGMA, Przedsiębiorstwo Naczelnej Organizacji Technicznej).
- “Federacja Stowarzyszeń Naukowo-Technicznych NOT”, Polish Wikipedia (web, secondary): NOT as a federation of scientific and technical associations; SIGMA-NOT as a technical publisher since 1949. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federacja_Stowarzyszeń_Naukowo-Technicznych_NOT
- Mikroszámítógép Magazin 1984 no. 2: the 1983 first issue; results of the readers’ questionnaire. 1986 no. 8 to 1988 no. 6: masthead “A Neumann János Számítógéptudományi Társaság és a KISZ Központi Bizottság lapja”. See Mikroszámítógép Magazin.
- Mikroprozessortechnik issue 1/1987, colophon (Kammer der Technik, VEB Verlag Technik, licence 1710) and p. 2 (Felix Meier’s greeting). See Mikroprozessortechnik.
- Mikrobáze, March 1987 (no. 3, 1987): cover (“Společná služba Amatérského radia a 602. ZO Svazarmu pro uživatele mikropočítačů”) and masthead (“Vydala 602. ZO Svazarmu pro potřeby vlastního aktivu”, responsible editor Jan Klabal, “Neprodejné”, “Povoleno ONV Praha 6”, “Náklad 4000 výtisků”).
- Amatérské radio, 1985: masthead (“Vydává ÚV Svazarmu ve Vydavatelství Naše vojsko”, editor-in-chief Jan Klabal) and editorial on Svazarm’s radio and electronics membership, the magazine’s circulation of more than 120,000 and the 3/1985 reader survey. Amatérské radio, 1986: Jan Klabal, “35 let Svazarmu” (the Svaz pro spolupráci s armádou).
- Svet kompjutera, October 1984: masthead (published by NO “Politika”, Belgrade). Računari u vašoj kući, January 1984: masthead (BIGZ, OOUR Novinska delatnost “Duga”; 200 dinars). See Računari.