“And so it came to pass that on November 19th, 2008 publisher Ziff Davis announced that PC Magazine–in the print version that gave it its name–was going to the great newsstand in the sky. When it gets there, it’ll have plenty of company: Most of the most important tech magazines ever published are no more, victims of the periodic industry shakeouts that are almost as old as the industry itself,” Harry McCracken writes for Technologizer.
McCracken writes, “Herewith, a look at a dozen tech publications that don’t exist anymore (in print form, at least–some are still with us online). All of them were significant in one way or another, all had loyal readerships who mourned their loss, and most were terrific magazines, period. It’s in chronological order by the year of founding. And no, I didn’t include PC Mag: It’s got one more issue to go and therefore isn’t a defunct tech magazine just yet.”
McCracken’s Twelve Greatest Defunct Tech Magazines Ever:
• Popular Electronics (1954-1985)
• Creative Computing (1974-1985)
• Byte (1975-1998)
• InfoWorld (1978-2007)
• Compute! (1979-1994)
• 80/Microcomputing (1980-1988)
• Computer Gaming World (1981-2008)
• .info (1983-1992)
• MacUser (1985-1997)
• PC/Computing (1988-2002)
• Upside (1989-2002)
• The Industry Standard (1998-2001)
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’d add MacAddict (1996-2007*) to the list — especially the early years, before they lost their edge (not counting the AutoStart 9805 Worm incident).
*MacAddict was rebranded Mac|Life in February 2007.
I miss CrackAddict®.
There used to be a couple of magazines devoted to the Commodore 64. I can’t remember their names. Every issue had new programs complete with code. I remember painstakingly typing in lines of code. If I remember right, each line had a check sum. If the number at the end of the line you just typed didn’t match, you had made a mistake and needed to correct it.
How different from downloading apps on my iPhone.
Call Apple
I used to enjoy reading “NeXTWorld” — all four issues were rivetting!
The early years of MacAddict were phenomenal.. even MacHome was useful (it just disappeared after I renewed my subscription!), and MacUser too was great. In addition, there were some great Mac journalists no longer with us. I’m surprised about PC Mag. I’m a Mac Guy, but cancelled my subscription to PC World after too many annoying, amateurish articles in general, particularly an increasing number of Mac-bashing ones. Of all the PC magazines. I figured PC Mag was the most objective and informative. Dvorak, of course, was great comedy relief. But the Mac coverage was decent, so I kept that while cancelling PC World. I still get MacWorld and MacLife, of course.
InCider
A+
Open Apple / A2 Central
Do old Beagle Bros. catalogs count as magazines?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />
“Best. Computer Mag. Ever.”
Have a care. Shatner will sue.
Kaypro published a great magazine for owners of its machines, called Profiles. My first computer was a 1983 Kaypro II.
I had the pleasure of getting a handful of articles and reviews published in it.
It disappeared, of course, with the Kaypro.
“Computer Shopper” might as well be dead. It is just not the same since they changed formats. That giant brick of a magazine had everything in it. It was all about the adds and that’s what I loved about it and so did many other people.
I really miss MacAddict, I stopped my subscription when they hired the Bill Gates look a like editor and tried shipping the CD sleeveless. He was more bottom line than content minded.
There hasn’t been a good Mac magazine for years.
AmigaWorld & Amazing Computing – the best and only Amiga magazines in the US. I remember not being able to wait for them to show up every month… and then later, only bi-monthly.
I used to tell waiters that I was the restaurant critic for Byte magazine.
One of them believed me.
MacWeek – but do you recall who was in there?
One JCD.
Of course, Don Crabb – RIP.
Great rag.
I’d add Family Computing magazine to that list, personally. I used to spend hours typing in the programing code they featured every month on my VIC=20 and C64.I still have all the issues I got when I was a kid stored in some box up in my attic. Heh
Another vote for MacWeek and Creative Computing.
Don’t forget Mac the Knife…
I’d also throw “RUN” Magazine into the mix. Excellent Commodore-64 monthly!
Omni, anyone?
They left out WIRED. It’s still in print, but it resembles Maxim more than the tech magazine it once was.
Wow – I looked through all the comments to see if anyone listed Softalk. I read Byte and Creative Computing before I got my first Apple ][+ in 1980. Back then I think you got six months of Softalk free if you provided them with proof you bought a new Apple. That was a great mag.
Should have included some Apple II magazines, such as inCider, A+, and Nibble. Back before the Internet, I awaited for their monthly arrival with anticipation. Now, I get my MacWorld issue, and I barely notice. Sad…
wasn’t there one called SOFTTALK or something similar ? I remember having one with Jobs and the first mac on the cover.
Macweek!!! i never bought a printed copy, but online…i used to cache the articles that interested me….on, gulp, eworld, no less…i have been so happy with MDN for filling that void!!!!
@Scandalous
NeXTWorld actually published for years. I have every issue except for the first. It was how I first learned about the internet. Every article ended with the email address of the author. It was a great tech rag; large format, colorful layouts. Lots of articles about the NeXT’s object oriented development environment and cool NeXT software. The NeXT years were Steve Job’s most important because he was able to develop the OOP paradigm into a commercially viable (though not commercially successful) OS that is now OS X.
MackWeek
I always like MacUser much more than MacWorld in the early days when those were the only two mac resources. I mean, there was no internet! I had to go to Apple User Groups to get software demos! MacUser was much more accessible and practical than MacWorld which was more slick. Can’t believe it didn’t go defunct before ’97, the year this article claims.