website/content/history/softside-first-issue-released.md

title, date, years, topics, params

title	date	years	topics	params
SOFTSIDE, FIRST ISSUE RELEASED	1978-10-01	1978	Companies	when oc_id source OCTOBER 1978 42 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20221215134357/http://www.old-computers.com/history/detail.asp?n=42 2022-12-15

In October 1978, the first issue of SoftSide magazine was released. Managed by Roger Robitaille, it became quickly the leading type-it-in-yourself magazine for the Tandy TRS-80 and later Apple II, IBM-PC and Atari computers. At the time all computer fans were continuously seeking new programs for their machine and the cheaper way was to type them from a computer magazine.

In late 70s and early 80s, computer publications were amazingly valuable sources of information. They covered everything, from complete adventure games or useful machine language subroutines to undocumented operating system features to the occasional hardware hack.

The first publication devoted to personal computing was the Amateur Computer Society (ACS) newsletter. Issue 1 appeared in August 1966. The first one dedicated to a specific computer was the Micro-8 newsletter, published in 1974. Many others will follow in USA, among them:
• Creative Computing in December 1974,
• Byte, the small systems journal, in September 1975,
• Dr. Dobb's Journal in January 1976,
• Personal Computing Magazine in January 1977,
• Call Apple and Nibble in 1980, dedicated to the Apple II.

More than one Thousand magazines were released around the world between 1975 and 1980. The first and most significant one outside USA was ASCII, a Japanese magazine created by Akio Gunji and Kazuhiko Nishi in 1977.