Year founded 1981 Final issue
— Number December 1989
79 | First issue January/February 1981 Country USA | |
Frequency Bimonthly (1981-83)
Monthly (1983-89) Founder Lee H. Pappas
Michael DesChesnes | ||
ANALOG Computing (an acronym for Atari Newsletter And Lots Of Games) was an American computer magazine devoted to the Atari 8-bit home computer line, published from 1981 until 1989. ANALOG had a reputation for publishing fast and smooth machine language games, whereas most listings in the other Atari magazines of the time were written in Atari BASIC. Such games were accompanied by the assembly language source code. Originally the title as printed on the cover was A.N.A.L.O.G. 400/800 Magazine, but by the eighth issue it changed to A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing. Though the dots remained in the logo, it was simply referred to as ANALOG or ANALOG Computing inside the magazine.
Contents
ANALOG was co-launched by Lee H. Pappas and Michael DesChesnes, with the first issue being January/February 1981. It was published bi-monthly until November/December 1983 and then monthly from January 1984 on. In 1988, it was sold to LFP, Inc. The final issue was in December 1989, totaling 79 issues.
While the program listings were covered under the magazine's copyright protections, users were granted the right to type them into their computer for personal use, so long as they were not sold or copied. ("Reader Comments," ANALOG #2, page 5).
Books
ANALOG published two books of program listings and tutorials. The A.N.A.L.O.G. Compendium (1983) contained "the best Atari home computer programs from the first ten issues." An Atari 8-bit Extra from ANALOG Computing (1987) contained programs which had previously been unpublished.
ANALOG Software
In its early years, ANALOG Computing also sold commercial games via mail order under the name ANALOG Software.
ST-Log
When the Atari ST was announced in 1985, it was initially covered in the previously 8-bit-only magazine. Pappas soon launched an Atari ST-specific new magazine, ST-Log. (This is paralleled in STart magazine being spun off from Antic.)
In 1988, Pappas announced in an ST-Log editorial that both it and ANALOG Computing were under new ownership and the offices moved from Worcester, Massachusetts to North Hollywood, California.
In 1989 LFP Inc. announced it would merge ANALOG and ST-Log into one Atari resource. Instead, both magazines were dropped less than a month later and the staff merged into another publication owned by Pappas, Video Games & Computer Entertainment.