I've started thinking about whether I should give the Loadstar Explorer treatment to other Softdisk products.
First obstacle is, I don't know nearly enough about them. The only non-Loadstar Softdisk product I've ever used is their PC port of my game Circuitry. I think I still have my 3 1/2" copy of it somewhere. It think it was only sold as a standalone release, not part of a subscription. I don't even know what all of them are. i know of: Softdisk, Softdisk GS, Discword (for Mac), Big Blue Disk (later renamed), Gamer's Edge and I think they had an Amiga subscription for a bit too.
Second is, it's really hard to find complete collections of any of their non-Loadstar subscriptions. I only know of sporadic issues online. I think portions of their magazines may actually be lost media at this point. A couple of places online sold collections of one or more of their magazines until recently, but those seem to be dead now. I might even have to resort to watching eBay for issues, and then investing in means to get the disks dumped.
Third, getting the rights might be difficult. With Loadstar I have special dispensation granted by the rights-holder (which I think was broken off from the original company). But now, I'm not even sure who actually owns the rights to Softdisk's other output. I've mentioned this idea to Fender, and he's not sure who to contact.
Do any of you have collected issues of Softdisk's magazines? Would any of you have information on where to get them, and who to contact about putting out a curated compilation like Loadstar Compleat?
First obstacle is, I don't know nearly enough about them. The only non-Loadstar Softdisk product I've ever used is their PC port of my game Circuitry. I think I still have my 3 1/2" copy of it somewhere. It think it was only sold as a standalone release, not part of a subscription. I don't even know what all of them are. i know of: Softdisk, Softdisk GS, Discword (for Mac), Big Blue Disk (later renamed), Gamer's Edge and I think they had an Amiga subscription for a bit too.
Second is, it's really hard to find complete collections of any of their non-Loadstar subscriptions. I only know of sporadic issues online. I think portions of their magazines may actually be lost media at this point. A couple of places online sold collections of one or more of their magazines until recently, but those seem to be dead now. I might even have to resort to watching eBay for issues, and then investing in means to get the disks dumped.
Third, getting the rights might be difficult. With Loadstar I have special dispensation granted by the rights-holder (which I think was broken off from the original company). But now, I'm not even sure who actually owns the rights to Softdisk's other output. I've mentioned this idea to Fender, and he's not sure who to contact.
Do any of you have collected issues of Softdisk's magazines? Would any of you have information on where to get them, and who to contact about putting out a curated compilation like Loadstar Compleat?
