MICRO-80

MICRO-80 was an Australian monthly for the TRS-80, published from a post office box in Goodwood, South Australia, beginning in December 1979 at $2.50. This library holds 49 issues, running to January 1984.

It is the earliest Australian title held, and it precedes the earliest British one — Your Computer, June 1981 — by eighteen months.

A magazine that bought from its readers

Its editorial states the model without ornament:

“WE WILL BUY YOUR PROGRAMS! Most of the information we publish is provided by our readers, to whom we pay royalties. An application form containing full details of how you can use your TRS-80 to earn some extra income is included in every issue.”

The monthly contract is equally specific: at least one applications program in Level 1 BASIC, one in Level 2, one in Disk BASIC, plus utilities in Level 2 and machine language, and a hardware modification or construction article at least every second issue. Advertising rates are printed openly — $120 a full page, $30 a quarter, $8 for a fifty-word classified.

It also disclaims the obvious assumption: “MICRO-80 is in no way connected with the TANDY organisation.” A single-machine magazine published independently of the machine’s manufacturer, which is the opposite arrangement to Club Nintendo or Atari Club Magazin.

The cassette, in 1979

Every issue’s programs could be had on tape:

“…in each month’s issue are available on a cassette for an additional $3.50. [You] can order a 12 month subscription to the magazine PLUS cassette for $60.00, only $5.00 per month.”

This is not a cover tape — nothing is attached to the cover, and the cassette is bought separately or bundled into a subscription. But it addresses the same problem a decade earlier and on another continent: the reader who wants the programs and not the typing. The British cover-mounted model this Vault describes emerges in earnest around 1989.

An anti-copying appeal that does not threaten

The most striking passage in the first issue is its copyright notice, which starts conventionally and then changes register entirely:

“…Being practical, if you copied a program onto cassette and gave it to a friend who is not a subscriber to MICRO-80, we would be unlikely to sue you, even if we found out. However, that’s a pretty good way to put us out of business, then there would be no more programs to copy and no more money to be earned when we publish your programs! Think about it. If a friend asks you for a copy of a MICRO-80 program, why not get him to take out a subscription himself, that way everyone will benefit.”

A publisher conceding in print that it will not enforce against casual copying, and arguing from shared interest instead — in December 1979, years before the British trade’s anti-piracy campaigns. The argument it makes is circular by design: copy this and there will be nothing to copy, and nothing to be paid for when it is your program next time.

⚠ This entry is built from the first issue. This library holds four years of MICRO-80 and no account of it from anywhere else, so nothing here describes how it developed, who ran it, or how many readers it had.

See also

• Australian Personal Computer — launched five months later claiming to be Australia’s first
• Cover tapes — the later British cover-mounted model
• Cracking scene