#ii computing

The graphics focus of this issue included Margot Comstock in "Sotto Voce" looking back at how brilliant programmers had got the most out of Apple II graphics even as they'd started from a higher level than the Commodore Pet and TRS-80 and profiles of artists using Apples. Jef Raskin wrote a letter critiquing the criticisms of his SwyftCard ("It does take time to unlearn old habits when a new and better technology comes along") in a previous review.

The long-rumoured "IIx" or "Super II" materialized at last as the Apple IIgs, and this issue delved into its specifications (mentioning its "2.8 times standard Apple II speed" was a matter of guaranteeing "almost universal software compatibility"), glad the Apple II was no longer "The Computer That Technology Forgot" and supposing it would meet "the challenges of Atari, Commodore, IBM, and Tandy". In talking about the obvious suitability of the IIgs for small business, the magazine did briefly mention an "Open Mac" to be released next year. In "Sotto Voce" Margot Comstock offered suggestions on "how to get hooked on hacking" (for example, writing "a tiny adventure" without "a real parser"). One article further back in the magazine described the RLE picture format as a cross-platform standard; the type-in program included got me started not that many years ago delving into those antique images and attempting to move its logic over to Radio Shack computers.

Gift ideas (starting with the $999 Apple IIgs) made up the lead article in this issue; it also examined multifunction expansion cards to "power up your Apple" and reviewed Infocom's Trinity, Broderbund's The Toy Shop, and a computerized running shoe from Puma designed to download data to your Apple. Steve Wozniak was interviewed "ten years after," basically enjoying life as he worked at "CL9" and daydreaming about using the Cray supercomputer Apple was boasting about to "calculate e to a billion digits" (which would "take three months of runtime to calculate it in binary" and "another three months" to convert that to decimal, "printing as you go.") In "Sotto Voce," Margot Comstock quoted people who would have been familiar from the days of Softalk about how the market for personal computing might well have saturated already at ten to twenty percent of the population, those who read "for pleasure, for the sake of knowing, for more information than when to take the next aspirin or which brand of frozen dinner to buy."

The first issue of another magazine from Antic Publishing did lead off with an editorial from DeWitt Robbeloth addressing "our bravery (or foolhardiness) in launching a new computer magazine when computer mania seems to be at an ebb, and about our dedication to machines from a company so recently buffeted by internal strife." He noted that "trouble at Apple makes a magazine like ours even more valuable to you." Along with type-in programs, software and hardware reviews, and a profile of "creative catalyst" (and collaborator with Sesame Street) Christopher Cerf, this magazine included a column named "Sotto Voce" from Margot Comstock, cofounder and editor of Softalk, musing on how "the world of Apples" might still have something to it despite the fate of her own magazine.

A subject increasingly linked with the Apple II going forward provided the focus for this issue. It did interview Delbert "Del" Yocam, who directed "the development, manufacturing, management, quality and distribution of all Apple products" (and whose picture in the magazine was mirrored given the Mac and IIe in the background), who focused on education but did offer "a glimpse of the new Apple II, the 16-bit 'Super II'" while mentioning the "Apple II Forever" slogan. A non-Apple computer, the Laser 128, was reviewed.

Both DeWitt Robbeloth's editorial and the "shuttle tracker" program in this issue had to acknowledge the destruction of space shuttle Challenger; other science content included brief profiles of numerous scientists using Apple II computers in their assorted work. One article offered an improved random number generator. Margot Comstock's "Sotto Voce" noted Steve Jobs hadn't been mentioned at all in the "Sculley-style Media Event, The 1986 Apple World Conference." She briefly noted the introduction of the Macintosh Plus ("Not a new machine, not a revolutionary change—just the old Mac with the souped up speed and power people want, and then some") and passed on rumours of "a super II, streamlined with similar improvements" amid positive judgments of the new order at Apple.

This issue's look at "personal finance" included an article titled "Home Banking: Who Needs It?" and an interview with Charles Schwab, who "took advantage of deregulation of the securities industry to build America's most successful discount brokerage firm, Charles Schwab and Co., which became a subsidiary of the Bank of America in 1983." Margot Comstock's "Sotto Voce," still at the front of the magazine, supposed that "by the time you're reading this, there may indeed be a color Macintosh—grating all the more on the souls of loyal Apple II devotees," but did grant that some of those devotees had been inspired to push their older computers still further to provide "many of the advantages and fun of having a Macintosh–with the II's own considerable advantages thrown in." The Swyftcard was reviewed, but without comments about Jef Raskin having lost control of his computer project code-named "Macintosh" to Steve Jobs; the review was polite but made a point of the product's limitations.

Word processors were examined in this issue, divided into three categories from "Student Use" (which included FrEdWriter, the "Free Education Writer," and Bank Street Writer) through "Personal Use" (which included The Bard's "Pro-Am" Apple IIe/c Writing System and AppleWorks) to "Power Use" (which culminated in WordPerfect). While the Apple IIc and IIgs could switch their keyboards into Dvorak mode (and potentially even rearrange their keycaps), a type-in program was included here to remap the keyboards of older models. Anita Malnig's editorial said there would be a drawing to give away an Apple IIgs system at the Consumer Electronics Show in June and there was a "Next Issue" sidebar promising an "Apollo Space Flight Simulator" and a feature on "Videodiscs and Apples," but this is the last issue of II Computing available on the Internet Archive, extending one issue past where "Apple II History" is aware of...