#the transactor

Making the most of routines built into Commodore ROM chips (including the "Kernel" or "Kernal") was the focus of this issue. One news item mentioned "Steven P. Jobs and the employees of Pixar" had purchased their computer animation company from Lucasfilm. One piece just behind the table of contents described the "Sensory Nasal Interface For Floppies," diverging from the date on the cover to deliver a "Special April Feature."

USA 1986

Along with multiple articles on software piracy (one suggesting the best solution was a hardware "dongle," but explaining not all dongles were constructed equal and the best would be destroyed during dismantling to keep pirates from understanding how they worked), this issue explained why it was now "95% ad free"; its circulation had increased to where it was cheaper to not print them, and most of those readers could "write software that surpasses 90% of the stuff for sale."

This issue's focus on communications included an article on how to "telecompute without the 'phone'"; it involved using short wave radio, although the "RTTY" transmissions started at "a somewhat slow 50 baud or 67 wpm speed." Karl J.H. Hildon's editorial commented that "another way too cold Ontario winter has passed, and another way too short Ontario summer is upon us"; he supposed he'd been too hasty with "demise-of-Atari overtones" after Jack Tramiel's Atari had put on a strong show in Toronto.

Taking its own bold leap forward, this issue included several articles about the Commodore Amiga, one from "A User's Perspective" ("The Amiga provides new answers to the old question, 'Great, but what's it good for?'") and one from "A Programmer's Perspective" ("Perhaps the only 'bad' news for hackers is that there are no mysteries to solve or unknown routines to find!") Commodore's previous computer continued to be covered with an article examining four low-cost word processors (Compute!'s SpeedScript, which you could buy if you didn't want to type it in yourself, was judged "very good value for money"). Karl J.H. Hildon's editorial contemplated the carnage in the computer magazine market with particular attention paid to the last issue of Creative Computing and his own magazine's minimal use of advertising.

Moving on up to the challenges and rewards of machine language (or assembly language) programming was the focus of this issue. One news item noted Commodore Business Machines (UK) Limited had received the Royal Warrant of Appointment by Her Majesty The Queen of England for computer business systems.

This issue's cover had a date on it; Karl J.H. Hildon's editorial was more focused on it having lost the trapezoid around the name, a design feature drawn from the original Commodore PET 2001. He also discussed Jack Tramiel (misspelling his name as "Tremiel" twice), less convinced than some that the Atari ST's low price would demolish the Apple Macintosh. Another editor offered "A Quick Overview" of the Commodore Plus 4, leading off that "for many the very thought of it conjures up images of strange, slimy things oozing out from under rocks," but insisting that its BASIC more than made up for its unimpressive built-in "user software," even if its price compared to the Commodore 64 might make it "just another really good Commodore machine that died an early death."

Karl J.H. Hildon's editorial for this issue supposed "two barrier zones have developed on either side of our fair industry"; "to our far left" was "the general conception that the microcomputer was over"; to the right were those who would eventually join but just not yet. He wasn't sure if "the Atari, the 128, the Amiga" would really be "the next wave," but eventually something would show up, "and we'll be in the middle, or even out in front!" In the meantime, there was a specs-heavy overview of the Atari 520ST (with the editorial caution this didn't mean The Transactor was about to step away from Commodore computers), an article comparing the MOS 6502, the Motorola 6809 (implying Chuck Peddle had "powered down" that chip and not its predecessor the 6800 to create the 6502), and the Motorola 68000, and a different article offering an overview of the Intel 8088. Commodore just happened to now be offering "IBM clones with a difference."