CU Amiga
Commodore User, renamed when the Amiga won
EMAP's Commodore magazine ran from June 1983 to October 1998 under two names — Commodore User for six years, CU Amiga for nine more. It is the longest-held British Commodore title in this library and, until now, the largest one the Vault had never written about.
CU Amiga was the second half of a magazine that started as Commodore User in June 1983 and did not stop until October 1998. Across both names it is the longest-running British Commodore title held in this library, and at 23,416 pages the largest single body of Amiga writing here.
The rename, dated
The changeover is clean enough to put a month on. Commodore User runs to June 1989; CU Amiga begins with July 1989 and continues to October 1998.
| Name | Issues held | Span |
|---|---|---|
| Commodore User | 70 | 1983-06 – 1989-06 |
| CU Amiga | 127 | 1989-07 – 1998-10 |
What the rename records is a platform handover inside a readership. A magazine called Commodore User in 1983 meant the VIC-20 and the Commodore 64; by 1989 the readers worth printing for had Amigas, and the masthead followed them. The magazine did not relaunch, restart its numbering, or change publisher — it changed which machine the word “Commodore” was understood to mean.
⚠ One item filed here as CU Amiga carries a December 1988 date, seven months before the rename. Nothing is claimed from it; the run above is drawn from the bulk.
Publisher
EMAP — EMAP Business and Computer Publications Ltd, Priory Court, 30-32 Farringdon Lane, London EC1R 3AU — which is the same house and the same address as Sinclair User. The October 1984 issue states it plainly in the small print: “Commodore User is published twelve times a year by EMAP Business and Computer Publications Ltd.”
So two of the defining British platform monthlies of the eighties were produced by one publisher from one building, for readerships that regarded each other as rivals.
Why it was missing
This entry exists because of a gap found by counting rather than by reading. The Vault carried entries for Amiga Format and Amiga Power while the library’s two largest Amiga holdings — this title at 23,416 pages and Amiga Computing at 17,946 — had no entry at all, and appeared only in passing mentions inside other pages.
It is the same shape as a gap found elsewhere in this project’s own holdings: the collecting ran ahead of the writing, and the writing inherited the shelf it already knew.
See also
- EMAP — the publisher
- Sinclair User — same publisher, same building
- Amiga User International — the Clerkenwell neighbour
- Amiga Computing — the other large holding, published from Macclesfield by the house that later took CRASH
- Amiga Format — the Future rival, itself a continuation of ST/Amiga Format
- Amiga Power
- Your Commodore — the Argus rival
- Commodore Amiga
- Commodore 64