''Diskworld'' () was a

disk magazine A disk magazine, colloquially known as a diskmag or diskzine, is a magazine that is distributed in electronic form to be read using computers. These had some popularity in the 1980s and 1990s as periodicals distributed on floppy disk, hence the ...

for the

Apple Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

computer system, published by

Softdisk Softdisk was a software and Internet company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Founded in 1981, its original products were disk magazines (which they termed "magazettes", for "magazine on diskette"). It was affiliated and partly owned by paper mag ...

beginning in 1988. It was a sister publication of ''

'' for 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 ...

, '' Loadstar'' for the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

, and ''

Big Blue Disk Softdisk was a software and Internet company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Founded in 1981, its original products were disk magazines (which they termed "magazettes", for "magazine on diskette"). It was affiliated and partly owned by paper mag ...

'' for the

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...

. ''Diskworld'' ceased publication in 1998.

Overview

''Diskworld'' was originally designed and created by Sean Golden (Managing Editor), Jeff Billings (Senior Programmer) and Lynda Fowler (Junior Programmer). Sean Golden wrote the original Diskworld "shell" program which provided access to the monthly disk contents. He also wrote most of the editorial content each month. Jeff Billings and Lynda Fowler developed monthly productivity, utility or game programs which were published on the disk. Jeff and Lynda also provided some editorial content, and Sean also contributed programs. Freelance programmers also provided content for a fee. The product was broken down into editorials, articles, reviews, artwork and software, all presented with the custom "shell" program which allowed users to run the disk without having to swap out system disks on the original Macintosh. The early issues were published on 400K disks, but moved to 800K disks when the 400K disks become obsolete. Eventually it was possible to produce a version of the "shell" program that did not carry a duplicate version of the Mac OS when hard drives became commonplace. That allowed for more content to be published on each disk. Jeff Billings left the company and Lynda Fowler became Senior Programmer. When Sean Golden was promoted to Softdisk Publishing, Inc. Publisher, Lynda Fowler became Managing Editor of ''Diskworld''. Later, ''Diskworld'' was renamed ''Softdisk for Mac'', but it ceased publication in 1998 along with the other disk magazines published by Softdisk (other than ''Loadstar'', which broke off as an independent company and continued into the 2000s) as the company moved more into

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

development.

References

Disk magazines Defunct computer magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1988 Magazines disestablished in 1998 Softdisk {{compu-mag-stub