Loadstar was a disk magazine

Disk magazine

A disk magazine, colloquially known as a diskmag, is a magazine that is distributed in electronic form to be read using computers. These had some popularity in the 1980s and 1990s as periodicals distributed on floppy disk, hence their name...

 for the Commodore 64

Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...

 computer, published starting in 1984. It derived its name from the command commonly used to execute commercial software from a Commodore 1541

Commodore 1541

The Commodore 1541 , made by Commodore International, was the best-known floppy disk drive for the Commodore 64 home computer. The 1541 was a single-sided 170 kilobyte drive for 5¼" disks...

 disk: LOAD "*",8,1, with inspiration from the word "lodestar

Lodestar

A lodestar or guiding star may be:*Polaris*any star used in celestial navigation*metaphorically, any guiding principle*Guiding Star...

".

Loadstar was launched as a sister publication of Softdisk

Softdisk (disk magazine)

Softdisk , originally Softdisk Magazette, was a disk magazine for the Apple II computer line, published from 1981 through 1995. It was the first publication of the company that was also known as Softdisk, which would go on to publish disk magazines for other systems, other software, and later be...

, based in Shreveport, Louisiana

Shreveport, Louisiana

Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana. It is the principal city of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana and is the 109th-largest city in the United States....

. It was the second platform for which Softdisk

Softdisk

Softdisk is a software and Internet company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Founded in 1981, its original products were disk magazines...

 produced a disk magazine, after the Apple II

Apple II

The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...

. At the time, the Commodore 64

Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...

 was a very popular home computer

Home computer

Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...

 due to its inexpensive price and advanced graphics and sound capabilities.

Early issues of Loadstar were produced by the Softdisk staff, most of whom had more experience with Apple

Apple Computer

Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...

 than Commodore computers at the time, and much of the content was ported over from the Apple. However, over time, Commodore-specific staff and freelance contributors came aboard.

In addition, Loadstar was the official disk magazine for magazines published by Commodore, including Power/Play and Commodore Magazine. Users could find type-in programs from these publications featured on Loadstar.

In 1987, Fender Tucker

Fender Tucker

Fender Tucker has been a disk magazine editor and publisher, and a self-publisher of books.In 1986 he sold a couple of his home-programmed games to the Loadstar disk magazine for the Commodore 64 computer, and in September 1987, applied for and got the job of Managing Editor of the magazine...

 was hired as its editor, and he gave Loadstar a distinctive style and atmosphere, including references to a fictional "Loadstar Tower" where it was supposedly published (the offices at the time were in fact in a basement). Loadstars staff soon expanded to include Jeffrey L. Jones and Scott E. Resh, and the magazine's regular "Puzzle Page" feature - with interactive crosswords, card games, and logic puzzles - was edited by Barbara Schulak.

Under Tucker, a sister publication Loadstar 128 was launched for the Commodore 128

Commodore 128

The Commodore 128 home/personal computer was the last 8-bit machine commercially released by Commodore Business Machines...

 personal computer. This magazine was quarterly. Jones contributed to the Loadstar Letter, a printed publication which accompanied issues of Loadstar.

In 1989, Loadstar published DigitHunt, a number-puzzle game which was apparently the first home computer implementation of Sudoku

Sudoku

is a logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 sub-grids that compose the grid contains all of the digits from 1 to 9...

.

A notable feature in some early issues is the inclusion of a disk with software to access the then-new online service Quantum Link

Quantum Link

Quantum Link was a U.S. and Canadian online service for Commodore 64 and 128 personal computers that operated from November 5, 1985 to November 1, 1995. It was operated by Quantum Computer Services of Vienna, Virginia. In October 1991 they changed the name to America Online, which continues to...

, which had been fervently pitched to Loadstar by head of marketing Steve Case

Steve Case

Stephen McConnell "Steve" Case is an American businessman best known as the co-founder and former chief executive officer and chairman of America Online . Since his retirement as chairman of AOL Time Warner in 2003, he has gone on to build a variety of new businesses through his investment...

. The company that ran this service eventually turned into America Online.

As the years went by and the Commodore 64 was increasingly regarded as an obsolete computer, the resources of the company were shifted to software for more current systems such as Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 and the Macintosh, and later to the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

. However, Loadstar held on, and ultimately outlasted the disk magazines for newer platforms. When Softdisk no longer wished to support it, it was spun off as an independent company, J&F Publishing, co-owned by Tucker and his wife, Judi Mangham, who was a co-founder of Softdisk. It has continued to be published, well into the 2000s, for a cult-following audience of old-time Commodore buffs and for people who run it using Commodore 64 emulators on other platforms.

In January, 2001, Dave and Sheri Moorman of Holly, Colorado

Holly, Colorado

Holly is an historic Statutory Town in Prowers County in southeastern Colorado, United States, near the Kansas border. Located four miles from the Kansas border at an elevation of , Holly is the least elevated town in Colorado...

 took over as editors. It remains in publication, in several formats including "classic" Commodore 1541

Commodore 1541

The Commodore 1541 , made by Commodore International, was the best-known floppy disk drive for the Commodore 64 home computer. The 1541 was a single-sided 170 kilobyte drive for 5¼" disks...

 floppy disk

Floppy disk

A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...

s and e-mailed files in C-64 emulator format. An official Web site exists, but not at the earlier loadstar.com address, which now belongs to somebody in Russia according to its WHOIS record.

As of March, 2008, 248 issues of Loadstar have been published. J&F Publishing still officially owns it, but the editing and distribution has been franchised to the Moormans' company, eTower Marketing, with Dave Moorman now editing the monthly magazines and Sheri Moorman handling business matters. Tucker is now concentrating on other ventures such as republishing the books of Harry Stephen Keeler

Harry Stephen Keeler

Harry Stephen Keeler was a prolific but little-known American author.- Biography :Born in Chicago in 1890, Keeler spent his childhood exclusively in this city, which was so beloved by the author that a large number of his works took place in and around it...

 under his Ramble House

Ramble House

Ramble House is a small American publisher founded by Fender Tucker and Jim Weiler in 1999. The press specializes in reprints of long-neglected and rare crime fiction novels, modern crime fiction and scholarly works by noted authors on the crime fiction genre, and a host of other diverse books of a...

imprint. Loadstar is now slated to cease publication with issue 256. Dave Moorman has kindly made issue 248 a free pass around issue as of November 2007.

External links

• Official site (unavailable as of June 2009)
• Ramble House site