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End of The Rainbow
Keeping the queue of my Tumblr well-stocked with computer magazine covers means being reminded of what’s to come. In most cases this is a causal awareness, but being conscious I was coming to the end of one magazine as I worked into 1993 did have some impact.
Having stuck with the Radio Shack and Tandy Color Computer machines for a long time, my family had a subscription to that computer’s longest-lasting magazine The Rainbow to the bitter end. I’m more familiar with that magazine’s final devolution than its swift rise, and witnessing it again was a bit of a weight. Had the magazine’s publisher not been so devoted (and able to keep afloat with a second magazine devoted to Tandy’s MS-DOS machines), I suppose it wouldn’t have backtracked all the way down to sixteen pages of newsprint; even the Apple II type-in program periodical Nibble, also a more independent production, didn’t get quite that simple by the end (although the Commodore 64-focused Compute’s Gazette did wind up in its own peculiar position).
Aware of the problems of nostalgia in other settings, I can see a point to “a single good-enough standard really ought to outweigh supposing yourself ‘different’ just because of advertising.” There’s also the wrinkle of “really, you can only respect yourself when you go to the effort of using Linux.” At the same time, I did get to wondering about some of the casual claims of superiority and impact in Rainbow editorials (which could seem much readier to smirk at the Macintosh than take on whether the plethora of commercial packages for the Commodore 64 outweighed how limited its built-in BASIC was.)
Having stuck with the Radio Shack and Tandy Color Computer machines for a long time, my family had a subscription to that computer’s longest-lasting magazine The Rainbow to the bitter end. I’m more familiar with that magazine’s final devolution than its swift rise, and witnessing it again was a bit of a weight. Had the magazine’s publisher not been so devoted (and able to keep afloat with a second magazine devoted to Tandy’s MS-DOS machines), I suppose it wouldn’t have backtracked all the way down to sixteen pages of newsprint; even the Apple II type-in program periodical Nibble, also a more independent production, didn’t get quite that simple by the end (although the Commodore 64-focused Compute’s Gazette did wind up in its own peculiar position).
Aware of the problems of nostalgia in other settings, I can see a point to “a single good-enough standard really ought to outweigh supposing yourself ‘different’ just because of advertising.” There’s also the wrinkle of “really, you can only respect yourself when you go to the effort of using Linux.” At the same time, I did get to wondering about some of the casual claims of superiority and impact in Rainbow editorials (which could seem much readier to smirk at the Macintosh than take on whether the plethora of commercial packages for the Commodore 64 outweighed how limited its built-in BASIC was.)