I found an archive with some scanned articles from the old magazine Compute! I hope I answer the question, "Why does ICJ have to be so negative all the time?".I am a new computer user, and I'm confused about something I read in your magazines. You often say Save a copy of the program before you run it. I find that I can run a program and save it later if I like the program. Could you please explain why it's important to save first?
John Huda
In most cases, it is possible to save a BASIC program after you've run it. However, some programs modify or delete parts of themselves when they are run. If you save at that point, you may not get the entire program. Other programs POKE a machine language program into memory. If you've mistyped even one number in the machine language portion, the computer may lock up, requiring you to turn the machine off and back on to regain control. Whenever you turn off the power, you lose whatever was previously in the computer's memory. To avoid losing your work by accident, it's always a good idea to save a program before you try it out for the first time.
Compute! was a magazine that hated the IBM PC. Knuckles, back me up here. BACK ME UP! They had articles for the Commodore constantly and loved to smoke some C64 pole. They eventually released a magazine exclusively for the PC/PCjr but it lasted two issues before they cancelled it. Meanwhile, in two thousand fucking five, if you're not using a computer which is based on 8088 architecture you essentially have some sort of social disease. But apparently complete market domination wasn't enough for the editors of Compute! to turn a profit.
... Anyway, they died but they live on in today's Internet (which x86 totally made possible for all of you - you're welcome). There's a link here: http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/index/
