In 1980s Hungary, a learned society published a magazine for home-computer owners. Mikroszámítógép Magazin, known to its readers as µM, was the paper of the Neumann János Számítógéptudományi Társaság, the John von Neumann Computer Science Society. It started with a single issue in 1983, settled into six issues a year, went monthly in 1986, and printed programs and tutorials for the machines Hungarians actually owned: the Commodore 64, 16 and Plus/4, the Sinclair Spectrum, the British Enterprise and the Hungarian Primo, alongside the school computers in the classroom. By 1989 it sold about 18,000 copies an issue, and it was losing the society a great deal of money.
A society’s magazine
The magazine’s founders were Kovács Győző, who led its editorial board and was the society’s secretary-general, and Könyves Tóth Pál, its managing editor (felelős szerkesztő). In 1984 the masthead called it “A Neumann János Számítógéptudományi Társaság lapja”, the society’s paper, made in cooperation with the Tudományszervezési és Informatikai Intézet (Institute for Science Organisation and Informatics) and published by the state Lapkiadó Vállalat. A year’s subscription cost 168 forints.
It was hard to buy at first. In 1984 the editors admitted that the magazine could be found in few places, and said they were negotiating with the Post Office’s newspaper bureau for wider distribution. Meanwhile “a few thousand copies” were always kept at the society’s headquarters in Báthori utca, Budapest.
Who read it
The first 1984 issue asked readers to fill in a questionnaire, and the second reported the 135 replies. Most readers, as the editors had hoped, did not count themselves computing professionals. Among the graduates who replied, schoolteachers were the largest group. Readers wanted, above all, to know how to run Sinclair, ABC-80 and Commodore programs on the school computer. The editors also answered complaints about advertising: advertisements, they explained, paid for the larger part of the magazine, and without them the price could not be held.
Early issues mixed school computing with home machines. The first of 1984 ran pieces on educational software in England, “A Commodore 64 Magyarországon” (the Commodore 64 in Hungary) and “A Spectrum spektruma”. Later issues printed “BASIC and machine-code programs for advanced users, for the Spectrum and the Primo” (January 1988) and graphics routines for the Plus/4, and in 1990 the magazine had a regular Enterprise section. Its Christmas 1987 buying guide shows what these machines cost: the Centrum department stores were selling the Enterprise for 16,900 forints, while a Budapest shop offered the Plus/4 with a cassette recorder for 18,000 forints and the Commodore 16 for 10,000 to 11,000.
Going monthly
In January 1986 Kovács Győző wrote that the magazine was beginning its fourth volume, and he admitted a problem that had dogged it “almost since editing the first issue”. It appeared irregularly, “sometimes not a single issue for months, then towards the end of the year one a month”, although the editors worked almost six months ahead. About a quarter of readers’ letters demanded that it come out more often. From 1986 it would appear twelve times a year, on the same day each month, at 30 forints a copy. Kovács hoped most copies would go to subscribers, and wanted to solve distribution abroad, where the interest came from the Hungarian-speaking people of the neighbouring countries.
The youth league years
From August 1986 the masthead named a second publisher: the magazine was now the paper of the society “és a KISZ Központi Bizottság”, and of the Central Committee of KISZ, the Hungarian Communist Youth League. The youth league’s publishing company, Ifjúsági Lap- és Könyvkiadó, produced it. The arrangement lasted until June 1988; from July the masthead named the society alone again, and in 1989 the society published the magazine itself. Poland’s Bajtek began in 1985 in a similar way, as a supplement to a youth daily.
From µM to Alaplap
The issue of May 1990 announced that its publisher was now Cédrus Informatikai Rt., and that from the next issue the magazine would appear under a new concept as “ALAPLAP mikroszámítógép magazin”, facing “towards users, PCs and software”. The first Alaplap, in June 1990, explained why. The magazine had cost the society a great deal; the loss in 1989 was “already very heavy” and the sources of further funding had dried up. To cover it, the price would have had to rise to 70 forints while keeping sales of about 18,000 copies, which was plainly impossible. Advertising could not grow either, because most of what was now on sale was for IBM-compatible PCs. By the end of 1989 closing the magazine “seemed unavoidable”.
Cédrus, a small cooperative that had become a joint-stock company on 1 January 1990, offered to take the magazine over. The handover took place on 15 March 1990. The new magazine cost 156 forints a month instead of 31, and came with a disk. Its editor-in-chief was Faklen Pál. The editors chose the name Alaplap (motherboard) over Mikromagazin. It was published as Alaplap until the end of 1993 and as Új Alaplap (New Alaplap) from 1994, and its last issue was dated January 2002.
Sources
- Mikroszámítógép Magazin 1984 no. 1: masthead (publisher, editorial board, subscription price), contents, questionnaire.
- Mikroszámítógép Magazin 1984 no. 2: masthead; results of the questionnaire; reply to readers (distribution, copies kept at the society’s headquarters); references to “our first, 1983 issue”.
- Mikroszámítógép Magazin 1985 no. 1 and no. 4: mastheads (Könyves Tóth Pál as managing editor; Delta Szaklapkiadó).
- Mikroszámítógép Magazin 1986 no. 1, p. 2: Kovács Győző, “Évente tizenkétszer — új köntösben”; masthead (30 forints a copy).
- Mikroszámítógép Magazin 1986 no. 2: article on collecting old computers, naming Kovács Győző as the society’s secretary-general.
- Mikroszámítógép Magazin 1986 no. 8 to 1988 no. 6, and 1988 no. 7: mastheads (the KISZ Central Committee as co-publisher; Ifjúsági Lap- és Könyvkiadó).
- Mikroszámítógép Magazin 1987 no. 12: Christmas buying guide (Enterprise, Plus/4 and C16 prices).
- Mikroszámítógép Magazin 1988 no. 1 and 1990 no. 1: contents.
- Mikroszámítógép Magazin 1990 no. 5: masthead and notice of the change of publisher and of the new magazine.
- Alaplap, June 1990: “Alapkérdések” (editorial) and masthead. Scan at the Internet Archive (web). https://archive.org/details/alaplap_1990-2002
- “Alaplap Magazin (1990-2002)”, Internet Archive collection description (web, secondary): the later titles and the last issue. https://archive.org/details/alaplap_1990-2002
- “Kovács Győző (informatikus)”, Hungarian Wikipedia (web, secondary): secretary-general of the society 1975–1985; founded and edited the magazine with Könyves Tóth Pál from 1983 to 1990. https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kov%C3%A1cs_Gy%C5%91z%C5%91_(informatikus)