CLASSIC SOFTWARE! 70 ALL-TIME BEST september 1988 COMPUTE! 7i'elef: 1alt}1!/ o;, I IOTl-I YEAR CONNECTYOURCOMPUTER1bA HIGHER INTELLIGENCE. CompuServe's reference straight to the reference information income, and occupation in any U.S. databases make you more you need in seconds. community. For a geography report, productive, competitive, Access thousands of sources of a business plan, or a family move. and better informed. information in the areas of business, All you need to access CompuServe's finance, medicine, education, unlimited world of information is a Remember the last time you tried to demographics, science, law, news, modem and just about any personal get your hands on hard-to-find facts? In popular entertainment, and sports. computer. Visit your computer dealer a magazine article you read a year ago. today. To order direct, or for more In a news report you never saw. Or in a What you know can help you. information, call or write: table of data you didn't know existed. Research an industry or company Imagine those facts just a few through articles, financial statements, keystrokes away on your personal and other sources. Analyze an C:OntpuServe® computer. Through CompuServe. investment. Assist in a job search. lnlormalion Services, P.O. Box 20212 Follow market competition. Investigate 5000 Ar1ing1on Cenlre Blvd.. Columbus. OH 43220 Your personal research center. a business opportunity. SOo-848-8199 In Ohio and Canada. call 614 457-0802 Save hours of research by going Check characteristics such as age, AA H&R BIOc:k Company WINNER! Best Educational Program With Designasaurus from Survive as a Brontosaurus, Print out 12 different dinosaurs. Britannica Software your child will Stegosaurus or T-Rex did millions Each complete with descriptions see dinosaurs come alive with sights of years ago. Thunder through for- and information. Select from 3 for­ and sounds* that will astound you. ests, mountains and swamps. See mats: regular, poster and even T-shirt Designasaurus recently won BEST if you can earn a certificate to the transfer. Coloror paint them. Frame EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM and Dinosaur Hall of Fame. them or wear them. We even BEST PRESCHOOL or PRIMARY . t . include a free T-shirt transfer in PROGRAM categories of the SPA's Create your own pre h1s one every box' Excellence in Software Awards. giant from a collection of fossilized · bones. Select different heads, Anworl< counesy of: Designed to never become extinct, bodies and tails from • SOfT•IUU'WC Designasaurus for the Apple //GS the Museum of has three dino-mite activities. Natural History. Build and name your own dinosaur! SUPER HI-RES GRAPHICS!· DIGITIZED SOUND! · Now available: •MS-DOS • Apple //e, //c • Apple//GS Coming Soon: • C64/ 128 •Amiga • Macintosh Don't wait another million years. Get it today at B. Dalton's Soft­ ware Etc., Babbage's, Egghead, Electronics Boutique, Software City, Walden software, Sears and wherever fine software is sold. •Apple // GS and Amiga ve111lona only I I I I I FEATURES -· Years Gone By We chart the history of home computing by offering up covers and articles from the last nine years of COMPUTE! magazine./Gregg Keizer 18 That Was Then, This Is Now What were 15 movers and shakers in the computer industry doing nine years ago, and what are they doing now?/Paul Freiberger and Dan McNeil/ __ 26 100 Milestones in Computer History Our birthday present to you-the most important computer hard­ ware, software, and publications on a collector's-edition poster. Editors 43 Conversations Epyx Grows with David Morse Epyx's CEO spells out what it takes to move an entertainment publisher past the $100-million mark. Keith Ferrell and Gregg Keizer_ 10 Buyer's Guide Classic Software Browse through these 70 classic programs from personal comput­ ing' s history. - Caroline D. Hanlon 54 REVIEWS Fast Looks 62 The Three Stooges Keith Ferrell 66 The Graphics Studio Steven Anzovin 67 Ultima V Shay Addams 68 SEPTEMBER Word bench Heidi E. H. Aycock 72 1988 Stealth Mission Tom Netsel 73 VOLUME 10 Twilight's Ransom Brian Summy 75 NUMBER 9 Read 'n Roll ISSUE 100 Carol S. Holzberg 77 The Leading Magazine or Home, Educatlonal, and Recreational Computing I I I I I COLUMNS Editorial License Throughout its first 100 issues, COMPUTE! has been the maga­ zine that always speaks first and clearest to the home user. Gregg Keizer 31 News & Notes CES wears many guises, Nintendo faces great DRAM drought, and GEOS gets to two./Editors 6 Gameplay Comics on computers take on the columnist, and win. Orson Scott Card 9 Impact The first 100 issues of COMPUTE! have seen the magic of a revolu­ tion's first decade. David D. Thornburg 12 Discoveries Writing, the key to success in school, can be fun and fruitful with a word processor. David Stanton 80 Levitations The Consumer Electronics Show sure isn't what it used to be. Arlan Levitan 88 Letters COMPUTE! helps take a bite out -COMPUTE! SPECIFIC of crime!/Editors 13 New Products! MS-DOS Zak saves everyone's IQ, PC gets Clifton Karnes 36 palm-sized, sports explode from Accolade, and more new products. 64 & 128 Mickey McLean 34 Neil Randall 38 Apple II Gregg Keizer 39 Amiga Rhett Anderson 50 Macintosh Sharon Zardetto Aker 51 Atari ST David Plotkin 52 Hints & Tips Editors 15 Cover photo © 1988 Mark Wagoner COMPUTE! The Leading Magazine of Home, Educational, and Recreational Computing (USPS: 537250) is published monthly by COMPUTE! Pu blications, Inc., 825 7th twe., New York, NY 10019 USA. Phone: (21 2) 265-8360. Ed ~orial Olfices are located at 324 West Wendover Avenue. Greensboro, NC 27408. Domestic Subscriptions: 12 issues, $24. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: COMPUTE! Magazine, P.O. Box 10955. Des Moines. IA 50950. Second class postage paid at New York , NY and additional mailing offices. Entire contents copyright © 1988 by COMPL'TE! Publications. Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 0194-357X. editorial license GREGG KEIZER ooking back is only slightly less dan­ False: The average consumer can't do gerous than looking ahead. something useful with a computer. Every L Both pastimes-nostalgically month, COMPUTE! magazine shows how glancing at the past or pretentiously predict­ you can make the personal computer not ing the future-are often carried out with lit­ only useful, but indispensable, to modern tle information and an overpowering desire life. · to look for trends and patterns. Hindsight The second condition of today's state of has only one advantage-at least we can be personal computing is that the dominant relatively sure of the facts. computer system-in the home as well as in COMPUTE!'s With that caveat in mind, we've decid­ business-is the IBM PC and its clones and ed to set aside most of our normal activities compatibles. The system has won over the and dedicate this issue to remembrance of home market because of typical consumer Founding things past ... our past specifically, a part of issues-price, performance, and price. The the computer industry's past generally, and best evidence that the PC compatible is the Principle-to perhaps even a bit of your past as well. champion of the home comes from software The reason? This is COMPUTE!'s publishers, who continue to report phenom­ Talk to All lOOth issue, as well as its 9th anniversary. enal growth in MS-DOS entertainment and The numbers, when compared to magazines education titles' sales. in other fields, are not impressive. Life mag­ The effect of the PC compatible on the Computer azine recently celebrated its IOOOth issue; future home market? I'm not going to guess. Time is in its 65th year of publication. But Today, though, its impact is significant in Users-ls a in the personal computer publishing world, two areas: The first is an increase in non­ heading into a 10th year is the equivalent of game use of home computers; the PC and Strength several lifetimes. compatible made their reputations in the of­ It would be easy to take this birthday fice, and much of that work and software That's Lasted opportunity to look back and reflect on great has come home. The second is the clamor achievements. Or to look ahead and set for an easier-to-use interface, something less grander goals. I don't want to do either. In­ clumsy than MS-DOS's commands. Tandy a Lifetime in stead, let's look at now, today. Two things has offered its DeskMate as one graphic al­ stand out. ternative; IBM is working on another. Personal First and most important, there is a What does all this mean to COM­ home computer market, a consumer market PUTE! magazine as it heads into its tenth Computing for personal computers. Millions of Ameri­ year? cans have brought the personal computer I think it's a reaffirmation of COM­ into their homes-recent surveys indicate PUTE!'s focus. COMPUTE! has always spo­ that 20 percent of American households ken to the home user first and most often. have a personal computer. That's an impres­ The magazine will continue to feature appli­ sive figure. It's particularly impressive when cations and issues of concern to anyone who you remember the death knells everyone has a personal computer at home-concerns was sounding for the home computer in ranging from home entertainment to educa­ 1984 and 1985. Here's an example: John tion, desktop publishing, and financial plan­ Scul.ley, president and CEO of Apple, in his ning. The fact that more and more of the book Odyssey, cal.led the home market "a magazine's readers own IBM PC compati­ figment of everyone's imagination," and bles is an important, but not driving, influ­ said that "People weren't about to buy ence for COMPUTE!.