''Computist'' was a

magazine A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...

devoted to the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

personal computer that was published by

Charles R. Haight Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was ...

under the

SoftKey Publishing SoftKey International (originally SoftKey Software Products, Inc.) was a software company founded by Kevin O'Leary in 1986 in Toronto, Ontario. It was known as The Learning Company from 1995 to 1999 after acquiring The Learning Company and ...

name, between 1981 and 1993, for a total of 89 issues. The magazine was based in Tacoma, Washington. Originally launched as ''Hardcore Computing'', the 'hardcore' part was formally dropped from the title with the 27th issue. Only three volumes of ''Core'' were published: "All About Graphics", "Utilities" and "Home Computer Games". Originally, the "Games" topic was scheduled for Issue 4, but that issue was scrapped and "Games" became the theme for Issue 3. The "Databases" topic originally planned for Issue 3 later appeared as a feature article in ''Hardcore Computist'' #6. ''Core'' itself became a regular featured column in ''Hardcore Computist''. While it was billed as a magazine "for the serious user of Apple computers", in fact much of the content in ''Computist'' was devoted to the removal of copy protection from Apple software. At the time, it was commonplace for software publishers to prevent users from making copies of software by distributing the programs on floppy disks that had been written with a modified version of

Apple DOS Apple DOS is the family of disk operating systems for the Apple II series of microcomputers from late 1978 through early 1983. It was superseded by ProDOS in 1983. Apple DOS has three major releases: DOS 3.1, DOS 3.2, and DOS 3.3; each one of t ...

. Each issue of ''Computist'' included several "SoftKeys", short code snippets and instructions designed to circumvent software copy protection routines. Often these SoftKeys were designed to be used in conjunction with a program called Super IOB, which could reconstruct the publisher's DOS modifications, circumventing the copy protection for a particular program or group of programs. Typically, following the steps in a published SoftKey resulted in a disk free of protection, which could be duplicated with any disk copier, such as Apple's COPYA program. Early in its run, ''Computist'' was the subject of controversy, when other computer magazines of the day (notably ''

Nibble In computing, a nibble (occasionally nybble, nyble, or nybl to match the spelling of byte) is a four-bit aggregation, or half an octet. It is also known as half-byte or tetrade. In a networking or telecommunication context, the nibble is oft ...

'', ''

Creative Computing ''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format th ...

'' and '' Compute!'') refused to run ads for Haight's publications, citing their unwillingness to promote what they viewed as the facilitation of widespread

software piracy Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, su ...

; (they had also vetoed ads for

bit copy The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented a ...

programs, such as Essential Data Duplicator (E.D.D.) and Locksmith). Letters debating the merits of piracy versus the free exchange of information and the right of users to make legitimate backups of their programs, were exchanged between Haight and the other editors; several of these appeared in early issues of ''Hardcore Computist''. When ''

'' later closed down, ''Computist'' ran an obituary in Issue 28, reprinting one of its previous articles about the debate, as well as a response from a CC editor,

George Blank George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd President ...

. The magazine changed formats several times, going from a thick cardboard-style cover with color graphics, to lighter paper stock covers with expanded content and increased page count; and finally to a large format (11" by 17") newspaper style publication. This last, beginning with issue 66, was intended as a cost-saving measure as subscriptions and reader contributions began to fall off with the waning popularity of the Apple II line. The final issue (#89) listed only four contributors, including Krakowicz, whose "submission" was nothing more than a section of his series on cracking protected software that had been circulating the BBS community for a while.

References

External links

*
Complete archive of Computist scans

Online partial archive (issues 1 - 52) at textfiles.com

Computist(https:sdk.xyz)
{{Authority control Apple II periodicals Defunct computer magazines published in the United States Home computer magazines Magazines established in 1981 Magazines disestablished in 1993 Magazines published in Washington (state) Mass media in Tacoma, Washington