Levy_S-Hackers-Heroes-Computer-Revolution

Sometime later Margot stumbled across a publishing house which had started amagazine about software, and was looking for a partner. Margot and Al said they'dput up some money and do the magazine if they were promised full control. So theremains of the "Password" money went into this new incarnation of the magazine,a magazine devoted to the world of the Apple computer. It would be calledSoftalk.When Margot started drumming up advertisers she called up On-Line and toldRoberta, who was still handling corporate business from her Simi Valley kitchen,about wanting a completely professional magazine that would reflect the spirit ofthe Apple computer. Margot's enthusiasm was obvious. And when Margotmentioned that it was she who had won that contest to solve Mystery House,Roberta howled, "You're the one! We thought it would take months to do it."Roberta talked to Ken, and On-Line decided to take out four quarter-page ads inthe first issue. They called up other companies and urged them to take out ads, too.Softalk came out in September 1980 at thirty-two pages, including the covers.Eventually the people in the cottage industry of supplying products for the Applebegan to realize the value of a magazine whose readers were their direct targetaudience. By the end of 1981, there were well over a hundred advertising pages inan issue.These pioneering Apple World companies were bound by an unspoken spiritualbond. They all loved the Apple computer, and the idea of mass computing ingeneral. Somehow, they all believed that the world would be better when peoplegot their hands on computers, learned the lessons that computers had to teach, andespecially got software that would help expedite this process.In pursuit of this common goal, On-Line, Sirius, and Br0derbund became almost aBrotherhood of their own. Jewell and the Williamses and the Carlstons got toknow each other very well, not only at computer shows and trade events, but ateach other's parties, where the three staffs gathered, along with people from otherApple-oriented firms in California.This was in high contrast to some not-so-old but already moribund companies.Particularly Atari, the company which started as the first purveyor of the computergame and sold millions of dollars of software for the Atari "VCS" game machine(which could not be programmed like a computer) and its own competitor to theApple, the Atari Home Computer. Since its acquisition by the huge WamerCommunications conglomerate. Atari had shorn itself of the hacker-like openness