And let’s not forget my favorite “alternative,” Bob Levitus’s MACazine.
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Right, I knew I was forgetting one. Yes a favorite!
When we look back at “the good old days”, the question is: Are we just feeling a little nostalgic, or are we mourning the loss of the things we gave up in pursuit of our so-called “progress”? Some people think the very notion of progress is a mirage, and they may be right. 
What I miss from MacWEEK, and part of what informs the TidBITS publication schedule, is a weekly look at a world that’s interesting but doesn’t need following on a daily basis.
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That’s interesting Adam. I miss the simplicity of the world at that time when everything was new and exciting. There’s about 100 of them at the Internet Archive now, mostly from someone who started scanning a few months ago.
Mac the Knife rumors in back were fun. I always wondered who wrote that? MacTOONS cartoons by Eli were great too, and it’s too bad those never appeared online. I wonder if Eli is still around?
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I once had a fairly complete collection of the first decade or so of MacWEEK, MacWorld, MacUser, and a few other publications. Unfortunately, they were lost due to storm damage.
Especially in retrospect, I often found the ads to be at least as interesting as the articles.
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I always drooled over the APS ads. I remember paying $425 for a 730MB external drive for my IIci. Probably 1992ish. I really liked their drive enclosures, and still have a couple stashed away.
Especially in retrospect, I often found the ads to be at least as interesting as the articles.
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Wow! Many thanks for the Internet Archive collection link, Brian. I’m reluctant to immediately dip into them, as I suspect I’ll spend the rest of the day way down a nostalgic rabbit hole. 
It looks like MACWEEK had at least a 10 year run, which is longer than I recalled. These days, it seems like new developments and iterations roll out on a fairly predictable schedule set by Apple, with very little startling news or surprises, really.
I note the unexpected surprise, however, in this Archive collection, of the first 100 issues of TidBITS in Hypercard format, uploaded by Adam and Tonya. Does any current Apple app enable one to still read Hypercards?
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You’re welcome Jay. As far as Hypercard, you could load Mac OS 8.5 to 9 through the Sheepshaver emulator, or OS 7 to 8.1 through Basilisk II. I don’t see HyperCard support listed as a feature of Roger Wagner’s brilliant HyperStudio program that’s similar to Hypercard.
I remember Ric Ford running a print newsletter version of Macintouch before MacWeek magazine existed.
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My favourite Apple observational was ‘As the Apple turns’. It was always good for a laugh. Despite the last entry being 1999, the website still exists.
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I worked for Ziff-Davis Labs out of college (I was there 1992-1993), and was always excited to get my hands on the newest MacWeek. However, I was supposed to be working and so reading the magazine, which wasn’t part of a project (we had to track our time), wasn’t ever anything I could actually do!
10 posts were split to a new topic: The pace of change in the tech world
Thanks for this… I just went back and skimmed/read Vol 1, Issue 1, announcing the new Mac SE (my first computer), and a new application called Powerpoint by a company called Forethought. “With PowerPoint, you actually plan, compose and edit your entire presentation on your Macintosh™ computer. So you see exactly what you, and your audience, are going to see.” And an ad for MORE, the outline program by Dave Winer, who went on to found the EFF. Nice trip down memory lane!
My first full-time job was as a software developer working on PC-based CD duplication systems. So the price tag on that Pinnacle Micro drive means it must have been in the early 90s. I had a Philips drive to play with, it was the size of a large VCR but most of the interior was empty space apart from the drive itself and the power supply. And the cost of CD-R discs at the time was eye-watering — needless to say, an expensive debugging process!
We had an Aussie version of MacWorld down here but I can’t remember about MacWeek. I certainly never received anything for free - it was all purchased from a local newsagent.
The purchasing decision was often based on what the Cover CD had on it - typically a bunch of shareware (whatever happened to shareware?). It was a great way of delivering software pre-Internet.
I think the early days was a time when the vast majority of shared data, whether it was news items, coding sections, hardware and software profiles, opinion pieces and articles or yes, adverts, all of that came via magazines, the later versions came with software samples and demos on a disk/cd.
Our local newsagent was stacked layers deep with a huge range of titles and another deep stack of folks flicking through them. I subscribed to a few, Byte (US), Amiga World (US), Amiga Format (UK) and picked up others in the newsagent. Still wish I’d kept some early Bytes.
The stacks of these in my flat and my multiple computers cemented a certain reputation among my art friends and colleagues and girlfriends who found my focus baffling (until I loaded up Starglider 2 or It Came From the Desert). I always thought of them as a kind of personal graduate research, I would devour articles on topics I would never be putting to use, that side of things I am entirely self-taught. The Mac came later when I launched an art gallery and I needed to design a catalogue, and that was me off to the races on the Mac front.
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I loved Amiga World too and am still trying to track down all the issues. There was something more special about the Amiga than the Mac at that time with its five processors, multitasking, and affordable color.
Agreed, I had a 2000HD and a 500, alongside a PC and an early Toshiba laptop T1000. The chips in the Amiga knocked all debate aside, I ended up with my own animation company and teaching 3D modelling using them in a local College. Still have the 2000 in my attic, still works!
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