One of the things I'm working on for my menu system is a short history of Loadstar, that also mentions some notable facts about it. Here's what I've got so far, if anyone wants to suggest additions. (It's not very well ordered yet.):
-- Loadstar was an incredibly long-lived computer magazine, distributed on disk, for the Commodore 64 and 128 home computers. It began in 1985 and its last issue was distributed in 2007, covering a span of 22 years. It had 250 issues of the main publication, 42 quarterly issues dedicated to the Commodore 128, and numerous side products.
-- Over its history, Loadstar competed with Compute!, Compute's Gazette, UpTime, Ahoy!, Family Computing, Creative Computing, and other user-contributed software magazines. Loadstar outlived all of them by many years.
-- It was initially created by Al Vekovius, working for Softdisk, Inc. You might have heard of Softdisk as the prior place of work of several employees who left the company, founded id Software, and created Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM and Quake. It's possible that some of them might remember the Loadstar guys, but it seems doubtful.
-- Issue 44 began the reign of Fender Tucker, who would helm Loadstar for the next fifteen years. Fender lent the magazine a distinctive style. He'd write editorials describing the magazine as originating in the "Loadstar Tower," a wondrous place supposedly towering over downtown Shreveport, Louisiana. (The magazine was actually produced in a basement.) He'd also write up the adventures of his nefarious alter-ego and musician Knees Calhoon. Under his guidence Loadstar flourished, and garnered a devoted community of users and contributors.
-- According to Jeff Jones, attitudes at Softdisk were that the company's Windows and Mac products were the future of the company, but eventually the internet came along and dashed that dream. Softdisk continued along as an ISP for a time, but around 2006 its services were taken over by another company, and it's now long defunct. During Softdisk's later years Loadstar continued to support a large and loyal userbase, and didn't cost much to produce, so it continued to chug along well into the internet age.
-- Loadstar had a symbiotic relationship for about four years with Commodore's own publications Commodore Magazine and Power/Play. Type-in magazines would usually offer a disk supplement, offering all of the software in an issue on a compuer disk and saving users from the need to type them in. Commodore had an arrangement with Loadstar to serve as the disk supplement of their magazines. This deal lasted from around issues 11 to 61, and helped bulk out their issues with interesting software.
-- Another company with an arrangement with Loadstar was Quantum Compuer Services, which served the Commodore 64 community with an online service called QuantumLink. Several early Loadstar issues came with the QuantumLink client software included on one of its disk sides. Quantum eventually released a similar service for MS-DOS-based computers called America On-Line, which become a runaway hit. AOL would build upon this strategy of distributing their disks far and wide, first as 3 1/2" floppies, then as CD-ROMs, while QuantumLink was left to languish and, after a long period of decay where users complained of unmaintained upload sections and unmoderated forums, unceremoniously shut down without so much as an archive. The later history of AOL is generally known: the toast of the online world, AOL keywords broadcast during daytime television, a popular early choice for a dial-up ISP, then a disasterous merger with Time-Warner that would be hastily undone, and then, encroaching obscurity as first the internet and then social media made most of it services redundant. As of this writing AOL still exists, but it's fallen far from the days when its iconic "You've Got Mail!" catchphrase became the title of a Hollywood movie, proving once again, truly: what goes around, comes around.
-- Early issues of Loadstar often hosted ports of programs that originally appeared in Softdisk. One notable series of these is the Alfredo animations, a sequence of programs that depicted the travails of a stick man trying to survive a dangerous landscape. Long after Softdisk Magazine closed up shop, Loadstar published one final, original Alfredo adventure, in Fender Tucker's last issue, #199.
-- As Loadstar grew, so did its community, and the technology around it. While the Commodore 64 computer was discontinued in 1994 (after 12 years of production!), a thriving market of add-ons and upgrades sprang up to serve its users. Probably the most notable third-party producer of Commodore peripherals was CMD, Creative Micro Designs. While Commodore themselves made expansion memory modules for the C64, CMD took their ball and sprinted way downfield. CMD made a disk drive accelerator (JiffyDOS), powered memory units that could serve as long-term storage, accelerator chips, and even hard drives compatible with the venerable 8-bit machine. Loadstar's staff used many of these devices in its later years to help produce their magazine.
- Starting with Issue 32, some issues of Loadstar contained two disks of programs and information. These issues became more and more common until, beginning with Issue 43, every Loadstar contained at least two disks until the end of its run.
-- Loadstar was an incredibly long-lived computer magazine, distributed on disk, for the Commodore 64 and 128 home computers. It began in 1985 and its last issue was distributed in 2007, covering a span of 22 years. It had 250 issues of the main publication, 42 quarterly issues dedicated to the Commodore 128, and numerous side products.
-- Over its history, Loadstar competed with Compute!, Compute's Gazette, UpTime, Ahoy!, Family Computing, Creative Computing, and other user-contributed software magazines. Loadstar outlived all of them by many years.
-- It was initially created by Al Vekovius, working for Softdisk, Inc. You might have heard of Softdisk as the prior place of work of several employees who left the company, founded id Software, and created Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM and Quake. It's possible that some of them might remember the Loadstar guys, but it seems doubtful.
-- Issue 44 began the reign of Fender Tucker, who would helm Loadstar for the next fifteen years. Fender lent the magazine a distinctive style. He'd write editorials describing the magazine as originating in the "Loadstar Tower," a wondrous place supposedly towering over downtown Shreveport, Louisiana. (The magazine was actually produced in a basement.) He'd also write up the adventures of his nefarious alter-ego and musician Knees Calhoon. Under his guidence Loadstar flourished, and garnered a devoted community of users and contributors.
-- According to Jeff Jones, attitudes at Softdisk were that the company's Windows and Mac products were the future of the company, but eventually the internet came along and dashed that dream. Softdisk continued along as an ISP for a time, but around 2006 its services were taken over by another company, and it's now long defunct. During Softdisk's later years Loadstar continued to support a large and loyal userbase, and didn't cost much to produce, so it continued to chug along well into the internet age.
-- Loadstar had a symbiotic relationship for about four years with Commodore's own publications Commodore Magazine and Power/Play. Type-in magazines would usually offer a disk supplement, offering all of the software in an issue on a compuer disk and saving users from the need to type them in. Commodore had an arrangement with Loadstar to serve as the disk supplement of their magazines. This deal lasted from around issues 11 to 61, and helped bulk out their issues with interesting software.
-- Another company with an arrangement with Loadstar was Quantum Compuer Services, which served the Commodore 64 community with an online service called QuantumLink. Several early Loadstar issues came with the QuantumLink client software included on one of its disk sides. Quantum eventually released a similar service for MS-DOS-based computers called America On-Line, which become a runaway hit. AOL would build upon this strategy of distributing their disks far and wide, first as 3 1/2" floppies, then as CD-ROMs, while QuantumLink was left to languish and, after a long period of decay where users complained of unmaintained upload sections and unmoderated forums, unceremoniously shut down without so much as an archive. The later history of AOL is generally known: the toast of the online world, AOL keywords broadcast during daytime television, a popular early choice for a dial-up ISP, then a disasterous merger with Time-Warner that would be hastily undone, and then, encroaching obscurity as first the internet and then social media made most of it services redundant. As of this writing AOL still exists, but it's fallen far from the days when its iconic "You've Got Mail!" catchphrase became the title of a Hollywood movie, proving once again, truly: what goes around, comes around.
-- Early issues of Loadstar often hosted ports of programs that originally appeared in Softdisk. One notable series of these is the Alfredo animations, a sequence of programs that depicted the travails of a stick man trying to survive a dangerous landscape. Long after Softdisk Magazine closed up shop, Loadstar published one final, original Alfredo adventure, in Fender Tucker's last issue, #199.
-- As Loadstar grew, so did its community, and the technology around it. While the Commodore 64 computer was discontinued in 1994 (after 12 years of production!), a thriving market of add-ons and upgrades sprang up to serve its users. Probably the most notable third-party producer of Commodore peripherals was CMD, Creative Micro Designs. While Commodore themselves made expansion memory modules for the C64, CMD took their ball and sprinted way downfield. CMD made a disk drive accelerator (JiffyDOS), powered memory units that could serve as long-term storage, accelerator chips, and even hard drives compatible with the venerable 8-bit machine. Loadstar's staff used many of these devices in its later years to help produce their magazine.
- Starting with Issue 32, some issues of Loadstar contained two disks of programs and information. These issues became more and more common until, beginning with Issue 43, every Loadstar contained at least two disks until the end of its run.