NEW MAGAZINE PUBLICATIONS FOR THE APPLE II
By Wayne Short
Copyright (c) 1991 Apple Users' Group, Sydney
Republished from Applecations, a publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia.
The year 1990 should be seen very much as a 'watershed' year for magazine publications for the Apple II community. In addition to this club's own magazine the majority of the members obtain at least one U.S. magazine.
The demise of the "Call Apple" publication and the absorption of A+ plus magazine by Incider effectively reduced the number of choices we had available to obtain the latest information on new products for our machines.
However, during 1990 some new magazines emerged. I suppose the term magazine could be said of these to be a misnomer as in reality they consist of a collection text or word processing files on a 3.5 inch disk. As the subscription circulation for these is currently small great savings are made on the publishers part as printing costs for each unit are high. There also other advantages which I hope to clarify in this article.
Two new publications which are currently disk based only are STACK-CENTRAL and A2-CENTRAL. There are produced by the same publisher Tom Weishaar whose Kansas based company RESOURCE CENTRAL has had the vision to put up the capital to support them. Both publications are supplied on non-bootable disks.
STACK-CENTRAL is edited by Terry Baker revolves around HyperStudio and Multimedia for the Apple IIGS. It is currently bimonthly. With each issue you receive two disks. It also becomes clear upon viewing the "magazine" of the importance of a disk based publication - a paper based magazine on this subject would not be as effective.
To "read" the magazine most easily you will need to have a copy of HyperStudio by Roger Wagner Publishing (see the review in the November/December 1990 for a detailed description) issue of this magazine. However most recently the new "run time" only version of Hyperstudio has been made available on most Bulletin Boards (I believe there is a copy on this club's) as FreeWare. Either of these can be used to "read" however the full version the program will be needed if you wish to put into practice any of the "hints" or clip art supplied.
What the magazine currently consists is a collection of stacks which provide insights into the use a Hypermedia on the IIgs. A typical mix would be :
- Several Reader Submitted Stacks (to provide insights into possible uses of HyperMedia). The November Issue has two large stacks ... one was about Whales and the other was about the Meserschmitt Airplanes of the Second World War.
- New clip art and sampled sounds for use with HyperStudio.
- Hints on Stack Design and use of XCMDS in stacks
- New HyperMedia Products
After a shaky start the last two issues have been very good. The stacks currently supplied are compatible with HyperStudio Version 2.1 or higher. The annual cost of a subscription is $42 USD worldwide.
To replace the "Call Apple" publication in the early part of 1990, Ariel Publishing of Washingtion State commenced a magazine called 8/16. It was designed to provide a source for 8-bit and 16-bit programmers (therefore including all machines in the Apple II family) to discuss their ideas on programming techniques and on what tools were available to improve productivity.
Ariel Publishing offered a mix of written magazine and/or disk based publications. The disks were most useful are the offered not only a tutorial on techniques but also provided source code for use with a compiler in addition to the compiled program. Development languages will C, Pascal, APW and Merlin assembly language enviromenment. However after only 8 months of existence Ariel
Publishing decided that it would be better to sell its magazine to Tom Weishaar's company.
The magazine was renamed 816-Central and has Jay Jennings as its Chief Editor. (He was a contributing editor to the old magazine). The new magazine began shipping in December 1990. Issues are monthly and each issue consists of a single 3.5 inch disk in prodos format. No printed magazine is envisaged at this stage.
816-Central is very professional in appearance. The magazine is readable on either 8-bit or 16-bit computers via the supplied software. The 16-bit version uses a licensed version of the "run-time" HyperStudio and has stacks to allows browsing. The sample programs on each disk may be run from this interface directly.
The magazine aims to provide regular columns in the following areas:
* ZBasic programming for Apple II computers
* HyperLab for the Apple IIgs which discusses creating XCMDs for HyperMedia in different development languages
* C technques for the Apple IIgs
* Questions & Answers about programming
* Reviews of development tools such NIFTYLIST
The magazine is useful for anyone who would like to learn about how to program their Apple IIe/IIgs computer.
For subscribers to the old '816' magazine their subscription was transferred to the new magazine and conversions applied to those who were receiving the magazine only publication. The changeover between publishers was clean with no break in continuity. The annual cost of a subscription is also $42 USD worldwide.
With each magazine you will receive a 4-page catalog in the envelope. As a mail order house the aim is to provide the Apple II community with quality software, hardware and books.
Back issues of these publications are available also.. but the individual month or packaged in quarterly sets (a cheaper alternative).
For more information you should contact RESOURCE-CENTRAL (or the magazine by name) at P.O. Box 11250, Overland Park, Kansas 66211.

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