Softdisk , originally
Softdisk Magazette, was a
disk magazineA disk magazine, colloquially known as a diskmag, and also known by the portmanteau magazette , 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 Apple II computer line, published from 1981 through 1995. It was the first publication of the company that was also known as
SoftdiskSoftdisk is a software and Internet company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Founded in 1981, its original products were disk magazines...
, which would go on to publish disk magazines for other systems, other software, and later be involved in
InternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standardized Internet Protocol Suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
access, hosting, and development.
The brainchild of Jim Mangham, who then worked at the
LSU Medical CenterLouisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport is the academic center for medicine and medical research in North Louisiana. It is located in Shreveport and is part of the Louisiana State University System. The medical school opened in 1969. One of its founders was Dr. Joe E...
in
Shreveport, LouisianaShreveport is the third-largest city and the principal city of the third largest metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Louisiana, as well as being the 99th-largest city in the United States....
, Softdisk (originally intended to be called
The Harbinger Magazette, but launched as
Softdisk Magazette, with "magazette" being a portmanteau word combining "magazine" and "diskette") was published out of Mangham's house, with his then-wife Judi Mangham, LSUMC co-worker Al Vekovius, and
SoftalkSoftalk was a magazine of the early 1980s that focused on the Apple II computer. Published from 1979 through 1984, it featured articles about hardware and software associated with the Apple II platform and the people and companies who made them...
magazine (a paper magazine for the Apple) as partners in the venture.
The first issue was published in September, 1981, and consisted of a single 5.25" floppy diskette which could be flipped over to get to content on the back side.
Softdisk , originally
Softdisk Magazette, was a
disk magazineA disk magazine, colloquially known as a diskmag, and also known by the portmanteau magazette , 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 Apple II computer line, published from 1981 through 1995. It was the first publication of the company that was also known as
SoftdiskSoftdisk is a software and Internet company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Founded in 1981, its original products were disk magazines...
, which would go on to publish disk magazines for other systems, other software, and later be involved in
InternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standardized Internet Protocol Suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
access, hosting, and development.
The brainchild of Jim Mangham, who then worked at the
LSU Medical CenterLouisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport is the academic center for medicine and medical research in North Louisiana. It is located in Shreveport and is part of the Louisiana State University System. The medical school opened in 1969. One of its founders was Dr. Joe E...
in
Shreveport, LouisianaShreveport is the third-largest city and the principal city of the third largest metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Louisiana, as well as being the 99th-largest city in the United States....
, Softdisk (originally intended to be called
The Harbinger Magazette, but launched as
Softdisk Magazette, with "magazette" being a portmanteau word combining "magazine" and "diskette") was published out of Mangham's house, with his then-wife Judi Mangham, LSUMC co-worker Al Vekovius, and
SoftalkSoftalk was a magazine of the early 1980s that focused on the Apple II computer. Published from 1979 through 1984, it featured articles about hardware and software associated with the Apple II platform and the people and companies who made them...
magazine (a paper magazine for the Apple) as partners in the venture.
The first issue was published in September, 1981, and consisted of a single 5.25" floppy diskette which could be flipped over to get to content on the back side. There was fairly little content on the first issue, and it was mostly repeated on the second issue, so later when issue numbers were retroactively assigned for the purpose of back issue sales the October, 1981 issue was designated as "Softdisk #1", with the preceding month's issue considered either "#0" or unnumbered.
Originally, the subscribers had to send back the previous month's disk when the following issue was received; reusable mailers were used for this purpose, with a postage-paid return address label on the flip side of the address label used for outbound mailing, which was inserted in a plastic Ziploc baggie on the outside of the mailer so it could be reversed by the recipient. This disk return requirement was due in part to the fact that floppy disks were more expensive in those days and needed to be reused for economy, but was also designed to allow the subscribers to participate by leaving feedback electronically on the returning disks, as well as article and program submissions.
At first, the only payment for published material was in the form of coupons for free issues (subscriptions were on a month-to-month basis, with subscribers enclosing payment for the next issue along with returning disks; the price was $5 per issue at first), though eventually monetary payments were instituted. There was quite a bit of submitted material even before there was any financial incentive to participate; similarly to later projects such as
open-source softwareOpen source software is computer software for which the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that meets the Open Source Definition or that is in the public domain. This permits users to use, change, and improve the...
and
wikiA wiki is a website that uses wiki software, allowing the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked Web pages, using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor, within the browser...
s, Softdisk found a community of willing participants with motives other than making money.
As the publication grew and evolved, however, it became more conventional and "mainstream", losing some of its early quirky flavor and the community that developed around it; ultimately, it was more of a normal commercial publication, sold on an annual subscription basis and in retail stores, with a paid staff and contracted freelancers to produce material, and without any disk-return requirement.
Within the Apple II platform,
Softdisk spawned
Softdisk G-S for the
Apple IIgsThe Apple IIGS, the fifth model inception of the Apple II, is the most powerful member of the Apple II series of personal computers made by Apple Computer...
computer in 1989; Softdisk G-S lasted until 1997. It took advantage of the improved graphic and sound capabilities of the II
GS over earlier Apple models.
DiskworldDiskworld was a disk magazine for the Apple Macintosh computer system, published by Softdisk beginning in 1988. It was a sister publication of Softdisk for the Apple II, Loadstar for the Commodore 64, and Big Blue Disk for the IBM PC....
for the Macintosh (later
Softdisk for Mac) was also published, and eventually
Softdisk was redesigned to have a similar user interface, with many of the same staff people working on both the Mac and Apple II products. The original publication continued past the time when most people in the computer field regarded the Apple II as obsolete, but eventually ended publication in August, 1995 with issue #166 (at which point then-editor Peter Rokitski was putting it out practically singlehandedly), survived by disk magazines for other computer lines such as the Macintosh and
WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces...
which lasted a few more years before the entire line of Softdisk disk magazines was terminated.
Back issues of both Softdisk and Softdisk G-S magazines for the Apple II and IIgs can be purchased through Syndicomm. They also sell complete sets of the two magazines on CD-ROM, with each issue's disks in multiple disk image formats for use in either emulators or on actual Apple II computers.
External links