''The TORPET'' was a

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

-based

computer magazine Computer magazines are about computers and related subjects, such as networking and the Internet. Most computer magazines offer (or offered) advice, some offer programming tutorials, reviews of the latest technologies, and advertisements. His ...

directed at users of

Commodore Commodore may refer to: Ranks * Commodore (rank), a naval rank ** Commodore (Royal Navy), in the United Kingdom ** Commodore (United States) ** Commodore (Canada) ** Commodore (Finland) ** Commodore (Germany) or ''Kommodore'' * Air commodore ...

's 8-bit home computers.

Publication history

Though named for and associated with the Toronto PET Users Group (TPUG), the magazine was published independently of the club as a commercial enterprise with paid writers. Twenty-eight issues were produced for TPUG from November 1980 to August 1984. In 1984 ''TORPET'''s owner and editor, Bruce Beach, dissociated the publication from TPUG and relaunched it as an oceanography journal,

backronym A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The ...

ming its name to ''Today's Oceanographic Research Program for Education & Training''. TPUG launched its own computing journal, ''

TPUG Magazine The Toronto PET Users Group is one of the world's oldest extant computer user groups, and was among the very largest. The non-profit group is based in Toronto but has an international membership. It supports nearly all Commodore computers, includ ...

'', in February 1984. A 320-page anthology of ''The TORPET'''s most popular articles, ''The Best of The TORPET Plus More for the Commodore 64 and the VIC-20'', was published in 1984 by Copp Clark Pitman. It featured type-in listings for over a thousand

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...

programs, articles and cartoon strips teaching BASIC and

machine language In computer programming, machine code is any low-level programming language, consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). Each instruction causes the CPU to perform a very ...

programming,

memory map In computer science, a memory map is a structure of data (which usually resides in memory itself) that indicates how memory is laid out. The term "memory map" can have different meanings in different contexts. *It is the fastest and most flexible ...

s, and user documentation for popular

public domain software Public-domain software is software that has been placed in the public domain, in other words, software for which there is absolutely no ownership such as copyright, trademark, or patent. Software in the public domain can be modified, distributed, ...

References

External links

''TORPET'' archive
at

TPUG The Toronto PET Users Group is one of the world's oldest extant computer user groups, and was among the very largest. The non-profit group is based in Toronto but has an international membership. It supports nearly all Commodore computers, includ ...

''The TORPET''
at the Personal Computer Museum
Bruce Beach biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:TORPET, The Defunct magazines published in Canada Defunct computer magazines Magazines established in 1980 Magazines disestablished in 1984 Commodore 8-bit computer magazines Magazines published in Toronto Monthly magazines published in Canada