Code Like It's 198x

Compute!'s Gazette

Programs you could type, for Commodore owners, from 1983 to 1995

MagazinesSource-checked

COMPUTE! Publications of Greensboro, North Carolina, launched Compute!'s Gazette in July 1983 for VIC-20 and Commodore 64 owners, with a first print run of 175,000. It gave readers the Automatic Proofreader, MLX and SpeedScript, sold its programs on an unprotected monthly disk from May 1984, and peaked at an average of about 295,000 paid copies in 1985. It became a section of COMPUTE in 1990, went disk-only in January 1994 and ended in 1995; the name was revived in 2025.

In July 1983 COMPUTE! Publications printed 175,000 copies of the first issue of a new magazine, more than twice the 75,000 it had planned. Compute!’s Gazette was for owners of the Commodore VIC-20 and 64, and its editor-in-chief, Robert Lock, explained the hurry in his first editorial: Commodore, he estimated, was “currently selling over 100,000 VIC-20s and 64s a month.” Most of those buyers were beginners, and the Gazette promised them tutorials, games and applications in every issue. Above all it printed programs, pages of them, for readers to type in at home.

Fast facts

  • First issue: July 1983, $2.00; $20 for a year’s subscription.
  • Publisher: COMPUTE! Publications, Inc., of Greensboro, North Carolina, which also published COMPUTE!. It belonged to ABC’s publishing division from 1983 and to General Media from 1990.
  • Editors: Tom R. Halfhill (1983–84), Lance Elko (1984–90), Tom Netsel (from October 1990).
  • Machines: Commodore 64 and VIC-20 at first, later also the Commodore 16 and Plus/4 and the Commodore 128.
  • Disk edition: every issue’s programs on disk, from May 1984.
  • Run: monthly magazine to 1990; a section of COMPUTE from October 1990 to December 1993; disk only from January 1994 to early 1995.

Typing it right

A type-in listing is only as good as the typing. One wrong character in a page of BASIC, or one wrong number in a block of machine code, and the program would not run. The Gazette’s answer came from its program editor, Charles Brannon. “The Automatic Proofreader”, in the October 1983 issue, sat in memory while the reader typed and showed a checksum after each line, to compare with the one printed beside it. In December 1983 came MLX, an entry program for the long lists of numbers that made up machine-language programs, which checked every line as it went in.

With those in place the Gazette could print programs far longer than anyone would type unaided. The January 1984 issue carried Brannon’s SpeedScript, a word processor “with all the major features of commercial word processors”, written entirely in machine language for the 64 and the expanded VIC-20.

The disk, and an argument about copying

For readers who would rather not type, the Gazette began selling a monthly disk with the May 1984 issue: all the programs from each issue, for $69.95 a year or $7.95 a copy. Lock had raised the idea of protecting the disk against copying, and the readers wrote back in their hundreds. In the May issue he reported the decision: “initially at least, it will not be protected.” The most common argument, he wrote, was that readers wanted to make backups, group programs onto their own disks, and “alter, enhance, and generally have a good time ‘fiddling’ with the code”, which was the point of the magazine in the first place. He added a reminder that printing a program did not put it in the public domain.

How many readers

American magazines printed a sworn circulation statement once a year. The Gazette’s show average paid sales of about 238,000 copies an issue in the year to September 1984, rising to about 295,500 in 1985, the highest of the statements printed from 1984 to 1988. The figure was about 293,700 in 1986, then fell to about 253,600 in 1987 and 238,000 in 1988.

The magazine changed with Commodore’s range. Looking back in 1993, Tom Netsel wrote that its coverage had expanded to the Plus/4, the 16 and the 128 as they appeared, and then narrowed again once the 64 and 128 “emerged as the survivors”.

Sold, merged and moved to disk

In 1990 Capital Cities/ABC sold its consumer magazines, and General Media bought the COMPUTE! titles. The last separate issue of the Gazette was dated June 1990. From October 1990 it continued as a section inside the Commodore 64/128 edition of the merged magazine, COMPUTE, under a new editor, Tom Netsel. Lance Elko, who had edited the Gazette since early 1984, had decided “the time had come for him to pursue other interests”. Netsel promised the type-ins would stay: “The type-in programs have always been an integral part of the Gazette concept.”

The paper Gazette lasted until December 1993. “This is the last issue that will be printed on paper,” Netsel wrote. “Next month, Gazette moves entirely to disk.” He promised that the columns by Jim Butterfield, Fred D’Ignazio, Larry Cotton and Steve Vander Ark would carry on as text files on a double-sided monthly disk, at $49.95 a year, with documentation that readers could read on screen or print out. COMPUTE itself ended with its September 1994 issue, and the Gazette disk continued into 1995; the last disk in the public archive is dated February 1995.

The name returns

In 2025 COMPUTE! Publications, Inc., which records itself as the copyright holder of the COMPUTE! and Gazette archive for 1979 to 1995, revived Compute!’s Gazette as a monthly retro-computing magazine in print and digital editions. Unlike the original, it covers other classic machines besides Commodore’s, including Atari computers and the Amiga.

Sources

  • Compute!’s Gazette issue 1, July 1983: cover; Robert Lock, “The Editor’s Notes”, pp. 5–6 (press run, Commodore’s sales estimate, staff); masthead and subscription rates.
  • Compute!’s Gazette issue 4, October 1983: Charles Brannon, “The Automatic Proofreader: Banish Typos Forever!”
  • Compute!’s Gazette issue 6, December 1983: Charles Brannon, “MLX: Machine Language Entry Program For Commodore 64”.
  • Compute!’s Gazette issue 7, January 1984: cover and contents (Charles Brannon, “SpeedScript Word Processor For VIC And 64”, p. 38).
  • Compute!’s Gazette issue 8, February 1984: “The Editor’s Notes” (Lance Elko succeeds Tom Halfhill as editor).
  • Compute!’s Gazette issue 9, March 1984, p. 6: “The Editor’s Notes” (the disk subscription and prices).
  • Compute!‘s Gazette issue 11, May 1984, p. 6: “The Editor’s Notes” (no copy protection, readers’ letters).
  • Compute!’s Gazette issues 19 (January 1985), 31 (January 1986), 43 (January 1987), 55 (January 1988) and 67 (January 1989): annual statements of ownership, management and circulation.
  • Compute!’s Gazette vol. 8 no. 6, June 1990: the last separate issue, as also stated in the description of the “Compute! Gazette (1983-1990)” collection, Internet Archive (web, secondary). https://archive.org/details/compute-gazette
  • COMPUTE issue 122, October 1990, Gazette section p. G1: Tom Netsel, “64/128 View” (the sale to General Media, the merged magazine, Lance Elko’s departure).
  • COMPUTE issue 154, July 1993, Gazette section p. G1: Tom Netsel, “64/128 View” (ten years of the Gazette, machines covered).
  • COMPUTE issue 159, December 1993, Gazette section p. G1: Tom Netsel, “64/128 View” (the move to disk, the $49.95 subscription).
  • COMPUTE issue 168, September 1994: masthead (Tom Netsel, “Gazette and Online Editor”) and advertisement for the Gazette disk.
  • Compute Gazette Disk Mag, disk images for January 1994 to February 1995, Internet Archive (web, secondary). https://archive.org/details/Compute_Gazette_Disk_Mag_1995_02-Feb
  • “Compute!’s Gazette”, Wikipedia (web, secondary): the disk-only edition to February 1995 and the 2025 revival. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compute!%27s_Gazette
  • Compute!’s Gazette website (web, secondary): the copyright statement for the 1979–1995 archive, and monthly issues of the revived magazine numbered as volume 2 in 2026. https://www.computesgazette.com/

See also

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