Sooner than I’d anticipated, I’m back on the blog. I’ve scanned a couple of my issues of Softalk, and as an experiment, I tried putting them in a shared folder on box.com, since I happened to have a bunch of space available there. But the downloading interface is not optimal, and it pings me every time someone downloads a file. The advantage was that it was browsable, but I’ll replicate that by posting the links here.
Update: I’ve updated August 1982, it is now complete except for the back cover.
What I’ve been doing is extracting selected individual articles (with full-page ads removed) from the magazines, and then (where I’ve done the whole thing) the entire issues. These are searchable images, originally scanned at 600dpi and down sampled to 300dpi, since, as it turns out, the printed resolution is not high enough to warrant 600dpi. I’ve also put bookmarks in the PDF files for the articles, since the additional time to do that over and above the cropping and OCR time was fairly insignificant.
Where I’ve processed the full issue, it’s linked below. I have some articles from issues that I have not scanned in full in here as well. I will update this post when I’ve scanned them in full, but probably also recapitulate it in a new blog post for those.
If you don’t want to wade through what’s below, the full issues are: July 1981 (79MB) and October 1982 (243MB). August 1982 (217MB) is complete except the back cover.
Softalk 1981 July
- Softalk 1981 July (full issue; 79MB)
- Exec Strategic Simulations (Allan Tommervik)
- Assembly Lines (Roger Wagner) — addition and subtraction
- The Pascal Path (Jim Merritt) — data types
- Softalk Presents the Bestsellers
Softalk 1981 November
- Full issue not complete
- Exec Brøderbund
- Grist for the Mill And Other Apple-Compatible Microprocessors (Jeffrey Mazur) — 6809 accelerators
- SOFTCARD Symposium (Greg Tibbetts) — Basic-80 file commands
- The Pascal Path (Jim Merritt) — output formatting and comments
- Assembly Lines (Roger Wagner) — reading/writing data files
- Time After Time (Richard Kaapke) — clock cards
- The Third BASIC (Taylor Pohlman) — text and data files
- Softalk Presents the Bestsellers
Softalk 1982 April
- Full issue not complete
- DOStalk (Bert Kersey) — debut, poking around in DOS
- Pascal Path (Jim Merritt) — parsing input
- Hardtalk (Jeffrey Mazur) — reviewing game controllers
- Go Ahead and Interrupt Your Apple, Part 2 (Dan Fischer, Morgan P. Caffrey) — processing interrupts
Softalk 1982 August
- Softalk 1982 August (mostly) (still missing back cover; 217MB)
- Exec Sir-Tech (Jim Salmons)
- Bank Switch Razzle-Dazzle: Peeking and Poking the Apple III (John Jeppson) — recreating PEEK and POKE on the III
- Assembly Lines (Roger Wagner) — reading the hires screen
- The Pascal Path (Jim Merritt) — I/O streams
- SOFTCARD Symposium (Greb Tibbetts) — DDT program, continued
- Hardtalk (Jeffrey Mazur) — EPROM programming
- All About Applesoft (Doug Carlston) — shape tables
- DOStalk (Bert Kersey) — graceful exit from CATALOG pause, etc.
- The Customization of VisiCalc for the Apple III (Joe Shelton) — VisiCalc Advanced Version and VisiSchedule
- The Third BASIC (Taylor Pohlman) — scrolling through text files
- Softalk Presents the Bestsellers
- Subscription card
Softalk 1982 October
- Softalk 1982 October (full issue, 243MB)
- Exec Infocom (Roe R. Adams III)
- DOStalk (Bert Kersey) — RWTS
- Graphically Speaking (Mark Pelczarski) — graphic character generation
- Hardtalk (Jeffrey Mazur) — the game I/O interface
- Have an Apple Split (Bob Bishop) — doing magic with blanking intervals
- The Pascal Path (Jim Merritt) — multidimensional arrays
- SOFTCARD Symposium (Greg Tibbitts) — generic CP/M
- The Third BASIC (Taylor Pohlman) — reading keyboard modifiers with interrupts
- Ad: Beagle Bros
Softalk 1984 January
- Full issue not complete
- Back to The Old Apple III Patch (John Jeppson) — moving system files into a subdirectory
- DOStalk (Tom Weishaar) — VisiCalc files
- A Family for the III-Plus (David Durkee, Albert Chu, Bob Cummings) — The Apple III+ team
- If Then Maybe (Roger Wagner) — BLOADing Applesoft files
- Softalk Articles Index Sep 1980–Dec 1983 (Betsy Barnes)
- Apple Leaders Preview 1984 (compiled by Tommy Gear)
- Softalk Presents the Bestsellers
Softalk 1984 July
- Full issue not complete
- Softly Comment: Apple III obituary (Al Tommervik)
- Softalk Presents the Bestsellers
Softalk 1984 August (final issue)
- Full issue not complete
- Exec Electronic Arts (Matt Yuen)
- DOStalk (Tom Weishaar) — text files
May be, somebody has Dec 1983 issue? I need article about first screensaver “Socha’s Toolbox: Save Your Monitor Screen!”, which was published in December 1983 issue of the Softalk magazine
Sorry, only just saw this. I definitely have the Dec 1983 issue, but I haven’t put a lot of effort into scanning them because they’re due to be available at the Softalk Apple site before too long. I believe Mike Maginnis scanned that one though as a test run. It’s a huge issue. I can’t seem to find his scan online right now, but I’ll check. I may have a local copy that I can at least extract that article from.
I’m looking at the issue now, but I’m not seeing anything that resembles what you’re looking for. Are you sure it was the December 1983 issue?
Im looking for the same acrticle anyone found it yet?
Ah-ha! The reason I couldn’t find it is that it was in Softalk for the IBM PC. I do have the December 1983 issue, with this article in it. I’ll see if I’ve scanned it already, I think I probably haven’t. I have a page with the tables of contents and covers scanned here, though: Softalk for the IBM PC.