👨‍👩‍👦 About the Thomas Brothers

Our journey began in the 1980s with a VIC-20 and later a Commodore 64. What started as tinkering with sprites, HEX, ASCII, BASIC, and 6502 machine code ignited a lifelong passion — and launched families, careers, creativity, and community.

MyCommodoreLife — We play with and enjoy the original hardware, and also embrace the incredible custom hardware being built by the community today. Old machines, new tricks.

About COMPUTE!'s Gazette

COMPUTE!'s Gazette was one of the most beloved personal computing magazines of the 1980s — dedicated entirely to the Commodore family of home computers: the VIC-20, Commodore 64, and C128. Published monthly from 1983 through 1994, it was a spin-off of the flagship COMPUTE! magazine and became essential reading for millions of Commodore enthusiasts worldwide.

The magazine was famous for its type-in programs — pages of BASIC and machine language code that readers would painstakingly type by hand to run games, utilities, and creative tools on their machines. This hands-on approach made it both a learning platform and an entertainment source, teaching a generation the fundamentals of programming.

In 2025, COMPUTE!'s Gazette was revived as a modern publication, celebrating retro computing while embracing new hardware like the MEGA65, FujiNet, and modern Commodore-inspired projects. It is once again a living, breathing magazine with new issues published regularly.

The Complete COMPUTE! Archive — What It Actually Is

The full COMPUTE! publishing family represents one of the most important collections of early personal computing history. Here is a clean inventory of what the archive actually encompasses:

1. Magazines — The Core of the Catalog

COMPUTE! (flagship magazine)

• Published: Fall 1979 – September 1994
• Issues: ~168 total issues
• Scope: Multi-platform — Commodore, Atari, Apple II, TI-99/4A, IBM PC, later ST & Amiga
• Content: Articles, reviews, columns, and extensive type-in programs for virtually every popular home computer of the era

COMPUTE!'s Gazette

• Published: 1983 – 1990 as a stand-alone magazine, then as an insert inside COMPUTE!
• Issues: ~90 stand-alone issues, plus Gazette sections inside COMPUTE!
• Scope: Commodore VIC-20, C64, C128 exclusively
• Content: Heavy type-in program focus, machine-specific tutorials, utilities, games, reviews, and community columns

Other COMPUTE! Spinoff Magazines

Often forgotten, but part of the same publishing family:

• COMPUTE!'s Amiga Resource — dedicated to the Commodore Amiga
• COMPUTE!'s PC Magazine — IBM PC-focused (not the Ziff-Davis PC Magazine)
• Compute II — single-board & experimental systems

2. Books — Paperback & Softcover

COMPUTE! Publications released dozens of books, mostly derived from magazine material but published as standalone copyrighted compilations. Major categories include:

• Type-in program collections — COMPUTE!'s First Book of Commodore 64 Programs, Best of COMPUTE!, and many more
• Platform-specific guides — C64, VIC-20, Atari 8-bit, Apple II, IBM PC
• Programming books — BASIC, machine language (6502-centric), some early C and assembly material
• Utilities & applications — SpeedScript word processor books, graphics and sound toolkits

3. Disk Products — The Most Misunderstood Part

Magazine disks were monthly or periodic diskettes containing pre-typed versions of type-in programs and utilities too large or complex to type manually. They were sold separately or bundled with subscriptions, available for:

• Commodore 64/128
• Atari 8-bit
• Apple II
• IBM PC (later years)

Compilation disks collected "Best of" or themed program sets, often mirroring the books but in immediately executable form.

4. What a "Complete" Archive Looks Like Today

Preservation sites like the Internet Archive have assembled:

• ✅ Scans of every magazine issue
• ✅ OCR text of articles and program listings
• ✅ Disk images (D64, ATR, etc.) for emulator use
• ✅ Indexes of programs and articles

5. One-Screen Summary

All created between 1979 and 1994

Publication Timeline

About This Fan Catalog

This is an unofficial, fan-built resource created out of love for COMPUTE!'s Gazette and the golden age of home computing. The catalog provides a fully searchable index of articles, program listings, and advertisers from both the classic era and the revived modern magazine — all in one place.

Thomas Brother Commodore Suite of Websites

This fan catalog is part of a family of sites dedicated to preserving and celebrating Commodore computing history.

Contact: webmaster@myc64.com