Tag - Eight Bit Magazine

Eight Bit Magazine Issue #8 Out Now

25th March 2020

I have to say the latest issue of Eight Bit magazine (issue #8) really caught my eye. There’s a VIC20 featured prominently on the front cover, a machine I have a real soft spot for as it was the first computer I ever owned. Most magazines tend to focus on its more powerful and popular sibling (the C64) so any coverage is more than welcome.

Cover featuring the Commodore VIC20

Inside there’s an interesting ten page ‘Collectors Guide to the VIC20’. It starts with a brief history of the VIC20 including that famous advert with Captain Kirk. It also looks at the machines hardware, the software available both back in the day and a few of the new titles released recently. It’s a good read for sure but it’s actually quite a short article and left me wanting more.

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Also in the issue is a really in-depth look at 8-bit baseball games. Unfortunately I have zero interest in baseball so I moved swiftly onto the next article which looks at IRATA.ONLINE. I must confess I’d never heard of this until now but it looks very interesting indeed and worthy of more investigation.

There’s also a look at ‘Retro Virtual Machine’ (a Spectrum & Amstrad CPC emulator) and a lengthy feature looking at the creations of Sir Clive Sinclair. To round off this issue there’s a couple of game reviews: Shockway Rider (which is available for the C64) and a Text Adventure called Tower of Despair for the Spectrum.

All in all the magazine offers a good read, though because it doesn’t focus on any single machine YMMV.

If this post has piqued your interest and you’d like to buy a copy then take a look at the Eight Bit Magazine website.

Eight Bit Magazine

28th November 2018

Steven

Commodore 64, Retro, Reviews

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In this post I’m taking a look at Eight Bit magazine, another new (to me at least) retro computer magazine. I actually ordered these 6 issues 4 months ago as part of a Kickstarter campaign but they took a fair bit longer to arrive than expected. I’ve only had time to read through the first issue so far but things are looking promising. The magazines are well written and interesting to read and feature multiple contributors rather than being written by just one person.

Genesis article

Issue one weighs in at almost 70 pages so there’s plenty to keep you occupied. As the title suggests, the content is spread across all 8-Bit formats. There’s a very interesting and in-depth look at the ‘Genesis’ of gaming. Here they delve into the history of the first arcade machines and home consoles that appeared in the 1970’s and early 80’s. This is a very long (14 pages) and text heavy article, but thankfully the font and colours used in the printing make it easy to read. Having lived through the entire period the article covers I found it to be a great trip down memory lane. I particularly enjoyed reading about long forgotten software companies such as Imagine (which was based in my home city) – as a child I used to dream of getting a job with them and razzing around in a flash car!

Commodore 64 Collectors Guide

Elsewhere in the magazine the article ‘Collectors Guide: The Commodore 64’ caught my eye. This is a brief introduction to the machine, what it can do and some of the most popular peripherals available for it. I hope to see more in depth articles about the 64 in future issues as this one didn’t really tell me anything new. However I think the point of these features is to give non-owners of such systems an idea of what the machine is capable of and what is available for it. The article did hint that they would be looking at GEOS in a future issue so I’m really looking forward to that!

Commodore 64 Collectors Guide

Also in issue one there is a brief (and I do mean brief) look at BASIC programming and machine code. I really hope they expand on this in future issues as I’ve got a strong hankering to get back into programming on the C64 and would love to see some proper tutorials. There’s also an extensive look at the early Apple 8-Bit computers, a quirky computer from Yugoslavia and even a couple of short game reviews. All in all I’m very pleased with this magazine and look forward to getting stuck into the other five issues. I’ll definitely be subscribing to future issues too.

If you would like to find out more information about the magazines or order your own copies then you can visit their webpage here: Eight Bit Magazine.