Computer Nostalgia

The Magazines

Your Sinclair / Crash Magazine / ZX Computing

ZX Computing - September 83	ZX Computing - March 84	Crash Issue 1 - February 1984	Crash - ZX Spectrum

ZX COMPUTING (1981-84)
This started out as a serious users magazine, and stayed that way until the bitter end. The cover would simply show a ZX80, ZX81 and Spectrum arranged in an artistic fashion. Every month. Notable for its lack of staples - the pages were in a glued spine which would fall apart after about 6 weeks, leaving that 16 page listing of Z80 hex code scattered in a random order on the bedroom carpet. Quite a heavyweight for its time, and the real content almost counterbalanced the adverts.

CRASH (1983-92)
Serious articles? Program listings? ZX81s? Get outta here! Spectrum only, games only, mate. A runaway success by the late 1980s, capturing the Speccys halcyon days perfectly. They managed to review pretty much every game released (back then you could get over 20 games out in a month) and you’d always get a screenshot, later in full colour, so you could see just how much attribute clash you were getting for your £5.50. For the true fan, you could order a Crash t-shirt, baseball cap or jogging pants, and the sadder types would frame the Oliver Frey cover art. Probably. Also included John Richardson's fantastic 'Jetman' cartoon strip, which should serve as a lesson to everyone that being unable to spell doesn't make cartoons any less valid. "Nex' munf,eh?" By its final hours, the magazine was reduced to a 4 game tape with 16 pages of adverts attached for £3.99, much like all the other 8-bit magazines that lasted beyond 1990.

Ace and Zero Magazine

ZERO Magazine - February 91	ACE Magazine - March 91	ZERO Magazine - March 91

A.C.E. (Advanced Computer Entertainment 1987-1992)

ACE was a precursor to the computer entertainment titles of today. The multi-platform coverage mixed technical issues and debates with entertainment. Its influence can be recognized in titles such as Arcade, Edge, and to a lesser extent, Computer & Video Games. It also had a massive impact upon the Amiga magazine market. In 1989 the magazine was sold to EMAP; this provided the available staff to split ST/Amiga Format into two publications. Secondly, its closure in 1992 heralded a new age for the The One, introducing new ideas, features, and layout, to the waning title.

Zero

This was a UK video game magazine published monthly by Dennis Publishing Ltd. between November 1989 and April 1992. (Actual publication dates were in the preceding month, as usual for UK magazines.) It won the European Computer Magazine of the Year award in 1990, and was also the best-selling multi-format 16-bit computer magazine in the UK.

The editor was Gareth Herincx. Reviewers for the launch issue were: Jonathan Davies, Sean Kelly, Duncan MacDonald, David McCandless, Marcus 'Binky' Berkmann, and Matt Bielby. Like many similar magazines, it contained sections of news, game reviews, previews, tips, help guides, columnists, reader's letters, and cover-mounted disks of game demos.