PAPERsoft | Code Like It's 198x

Every Friday from 15 June 1984, Italian newsstands sold a small magazine for 1,000 lire that held nothing but programs for the reader to type in. PAPERsoft called itself “il primo settimanale di software su carta”, the first weekly of software on paper. Its contents pages show where much of that software came from. Each listing carried two names: the program’s author, usually American or British, and the Italian who had translated and adapted it. Behind those credits are programs first printed in Compute!, SoftSide and Sinclair User, some of them only four months earlier, now with their on-screen text in Italian.

Fast facts

Publisher: J.soft editrice, Milan, “con la collaborazione del Gruppo Editoriale Jackson” (with the collaboration of the Jackson publishing group), as the covers put it from the third issue.
Editor: Pietro Dell’Orco, direttore responsabile.
Dates: weekly, Fridays, from 15 June 1984 to at least 27 December 1985.
Price: 1,000 lire; back issues 2,000 lire. By late October 1985 the price had risen to 1,300 lire.
Machines: Apple II, TI-99/4A, ZX Spectrum, VIC-20 and Commodore 64 from the first issue; later MSX and the Commodore 16 and Plus/4.
Editions: one magazine for all machines until April 1985, then separate Commodore, Sinclair and Apple–TI-99/4A–MSX editions.

A weekly because monthlies are too slow

Dell’Orco’s opening editorial, “Arriva il software tascabile” (pocket software has arrived), argued for the weekly rhythm from the reader’s side:

“Un settimanale di programmi per il personal computer? Chi l’avrebbe mai detto, fino a pochi mesi fa? E invece… eccoci in edicola.”

A weekly of programs for the personal computer: who would have said so, a few months ago? And yet here we are at the newsstand. The monthly magazines, he wrote, were all lovely, but “l’impazienza degli appassionati possessori di un personal computer” (the impatience of enthusiastic computer owners) had no limits. So the monthlies could go deep and publish complex programs. PAPERsoft would publish only software, “pronto per l’uso”, ready to use: “programmi da caricare immediatamente, listati, commenti e… RUN!” A computer without software, the editorial said, was just a nice electronic box. It asked readers to send in their own programs, and promised to publish the best.

J.soft already published the monthly listings magazines Super Sinc and SuperVIC, and advertised the new weekly in them: “a sole 1.000 Lire”, at only 1,000 lire, “ogni venerdì in edicola”, on the newsstands every Friday.

Where the programs came from

The first issue carried ten programs across four families of machine, and its contents page credited every one of them twice, in the form “di R. Harper, trad. e adatt. di M. Cerofolini”: by R. Harper, translated and adapted by M. Cerofolini. Six of the ten can be traced to the magazines they first appeared in.

PAPERsoft title	Machine	Author	Translated and adapted by	First published
Meteor Storm	Apple II	R. Harper	M. Cerofolini	“Meteor Storm”, Roy Harper, SoftSide, November 1980
Atterraggio lunare	Apple II	H. Sanday	M. Cerofolini
La disfida di Camelot	TI-99/4A	G. Garrett	E. Re Garbagnati
Fuga dal labirinto incantato	TI-99/4A	J. Kitchens	E. Re Garbagnati
Aereoporto	ZX Spectrum	D. Courtier-Dutton	C. Panzalis	“Airport”, David Courtier-Dutton, Sinclair User, July 1983
Musica	ZX Spectrum	S. Hiller	C. Panzalis
Gotcha!	Commodore	D. Smoak	U. Barzaghi	“Gotcha!”, Doug Smoak, Compute!, February 1984
Circo	Commodore	C. Setera	U. Barzaghi	“Circus”, Craig Setera, Compute!, February 1984
Quattro	Commodore	S. Puckett	U. Barzaghi	“Quatrainment”, Sean Puckett, Compute!, February 1984
Vic-Tastiera	VIC-20 and C64	D. Bingamon	U. Barzaghi	“64Key and VICKey”, Daniel Bingamon, Compute!, February 1984

Four of the ten came from a single issue of Compute! published four months earlier. The translations stay close to the originals. Compute! introduced Bingamon’s keyboard utility with “This might be the last program you type in the traditional way”; PAPERsoft’s version begins “Questo potrebbe essere l’ultimo programma da voi battuto nella maniera tradizionale!” SoftSide‘s “Meteor Storm” told the player “You have been chosen as the best pilot for the job”; the Italian reads “Siete stato scelto perché siete l’unico pilota in grado di compiere questa difficile missione”. The adapters rewrote the programs’ own messages too, so the Apple II game ends by printing “HAI GUADAGNATO … PUNTI IN QUESTA MISSIONE” (you earned … points on this mission).

The contents pages through the rest of 1984 follow the same pattern, with seven to eleven translated programs in most issues and a regular team of adapters: Cerofolini and Re Garbagnati for the Apple and TI-99/4A listings, Panzalis for the Spectrum, and Barzaghi, Sarcina, Sarli and others for the Commodores. One credit, “H. B. Herman, Associate Editor”, even kept the original author’s job title.

PAPERsoft’s own pages do not say whether the programs were licensed. Its sister magazine Super Commodore did: its masthead in 1985 credited material “dalla rivista COMPUTE!” and printed the Greensboro, North Carolina address of Compute!’s publisher.

Typing it in

Everything depended on the reader typing accurately, and the magazine helped. Commodore listings wrote control and colour characters as words in braces, such as {CLR} and {GIU'} (cursor down), with a table explaining each one, the same approach Compute! used. By 1985 each Commodore line ended with “:rem” and a checksum number, which a PAPERsoft utility called STOP BUG checked as the reader typed. Spectrum readers got a guide to entering the machine’s graphics characters.

It split by machine

On 12 April 1985, with issue 14 of its second year, PAPERsoft became three weeklies with the same name and numbering: one “per il tuo Commodore”, one “per il tuo Sinclair”, and one for the Apple, TI-99/4A and MSX. A subscription advertisement in Super Commodore that month offered 38 issues of any one edition for 30,000 lire instead of 38,000.

In October 1985 the editions changed again. The Commodore edition became a Commodore 64 magazine, and a second mixed edition, from 11 October, carried listings for the TI-99/4A, Spectrum, Commodore 16 and Plus/4 and VIC-20. By then the translation credits were rarer. Many listings carried “PAPERSOFT” in their opening REM lines instead of a foreign author’s name, and the Commodore 64 edition of 27 December 1985 is the last issue known from public archives.

Later

The back issues went on circulating. In November 1986 a reader advertising in MCmicrocomputer offered “Paper Soft n. 1-30” for 15,000 lire, and another was selling single copies in 1987. Italian collectors have since scanned the run. Members of the Italian VIC-20 community retype its VIC-20 listings, so that the programs can be loaded in emulators without anyone having to type them in again.

Sources

PAPERsoft, anno 1 no. 1, 15 June 1984: cover, p. 2 (contents with author and translator credits; masthead with Pietro Dell’Orco as direttore responsabile and Riccardo Paci as technical coordinator) and p. 3 (editorial, “Arriva il software tascabile”); the listings for “Meteor Storm”, “Aereoporto” and “Vic-Tastiera”; the guide to entering VIC-20 and C64 listings.
PAPERsoft, anno 1 nos. 3–27 (June 1984 to January 1985): cover line “con la collaborazione del Gruppo Editoriale Jackson” and contents credits.
PAPERsoft, anno 2 no. 13, 5 April 1985, the last single edition; no. 14, 12 April 1985, Commodore, Sinclair and Apple–TI-99/4A–MSX editions; no. 30, Commodore edition, 2 August 1985 (masthead: price 1,000 lire, back issues 2,000 lire; STOP BUG); nos. 39–50, October to December 1985, Commodore 64 and mixed editions (price 1,300 lire from the mixed edition of 25 October 1985).
Super Sinc, J.soft, July 1984 and September 1984: PAPERsoft advertisements (1,000 lire; every Friday). SuperVIC, J.soft, September 1984: masthead (J.soft s.r.l.).
Super Commodore, J.soft, April 1985, p. 17: PAPERsoft subscription offer and editions. Super Commodore 64, October 1985: masthead crediting Compute!.
SoftSide, vol. 3 no. 2, November 1980, p. 23: “Meteor Storm” by Roy Harper.
Sinclair User, issue 16, July 1983: “Airport” by David Courtier-Dutton of Bradfield, Berkshire.
Compute!, issue 45, February 1984: “Quatrainment” by Sean Puckett (p. 76), “Gotcha!” by Doug Smoak (p. 92), “Circus” by Craig Setera, and “64Key and VICKey” by Daniel Bingamon.
MCmicrocomputer, no. 57, November 1986, and no. 63, May 1987: readers’ small advertisements selling back issues.
“Paper Soft”, DVG – il Dizionario dei VideoGiochi (web, secondary): the editions from April and October 1985. https://www.dizionariovideogiochi.it/doku.php?id=paper_soft
“Papersoft anno 1 n° 01”, Internet Archive (web): the first issue. https://archive.org/details/Papersoft-1984-01
“PaperSoft ‘Re-typed’ – VIC 20” (web, secondary): the retyping project. https://www.vic-20.it/papersoft/