- Electron User
"Electron User" was a magazine targeted at owners of the
Acorn Electron microcomputer. It was published byDatabase Publications ofStockport , starting in October 1983 and ending after 82 issues in July 1990.Initially it was included as a 16-page pullout supplement to "
The Micro User " but after four such editions it became a standalone title and within a year had grown to an average length of around 64 pages. The focus was news stories,type-in program s and software reviews. It also containedcheat code s and a long-running column onadventure game s initially by "Merlin" in a column entitled "Merlin's Cave" and subsequently by "Pendragon".Its advertisers included the top BBC/Electron games distributors of the day, such as
Acornsoft andSuperior Software .Often the April-dated edition of the magazine included an
April Fool joke, generally consisting of a shortmachine code type-in listing which claimed to do something extremely useful and of wide interest but which in fact printed APRIL FOOL on the screen. Examples included:
*a program to predict what text the user would type next
*a program to compileBASIC programs directly into machine code leveraging the machine's BASIC interpreter
*a program to display colours on amonochrome screen by rapidly modulating the pixels (citing a recent "Tomorrow's World ")External links
* [http://www.acornelectron.co.uk/ Acorn Electron World website] including complete archive of page-by-page scans of all issues of "Electron User"
* [http://mags.acornpreservation.org/Electron_User/index.php Acornmags Electron User section]
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