I recently rediscovered boxes and boxes of old IBM PC floppy disks from the 90s. Mainly British PC magazine coverdisks (PC Zone, PC Format, PC Review, PC Gamer etc) that I collected religiously week in week out when I was teenager. With a bit of influence from some of my favourite YouTubers (Lazy Game Reviews, Nostalgia […]

If you’ve been looking at the old PC coverdisk archives I’ve been uploading you might be wondering how to play them on a modern PC. The answer is DOSBox, or more specifically, D-Fend Reloaded. DOSBox is a Intel x86 PC emulator along with all the sound (Sound Blaster, Adlib etc), graphic and input devices needed to […]

PC Format ran in the UK from 1991 to 2015 and was published by Future Publishing. It was a great magazine (ignoring the late 90s “lad mag” period… what were they thinking!) and really got me into the PC. The very first issue I bought had a tutorial on C programming from none other than Peter Molyneux […]

Personal Computer World was the first British PC magazine running from 1978 to 2009. It wasn’t one of the magazines that really appealed to me, it was more “IT Industry” focused and seemed to be about 50% ads (it was a BIG magazine). However, much like buying breakfast cereal for the free gift, I was persuaded […]

PC Gamer launched in the UK in December 1993 with the US edition following soon after in 1994. It was a solid magazine but I always felt it lacked the humour and personality of magazines like PC Zone. But having said that, it’s the only PC Magazine left on the newsagent shelves (unless you count […]

I don’t remember too much about PC Review and indeed can’t find anything on it past 1992 (archive.org/details/pcreviewmagazine) which was before I started to read it. From what I remember it disappeared mid decade. I think it failed to find its identity (and audience); in the early to mid 90s the newsagents where awash with PC […]

PC Zone was one of my favourite magazines full of British humour and a total lack of respect for pushy games companies. When a publisher, after a particular honest and brutal review, refused to give them any more game for review (that’ll learn um!)… they simply bought the games and reviewed them in the next […]

PC Zone RIP (1993 – 2010) The end of an era, PC Zone was the UKs finest PC Games magazine for 225 issues over 17 years. Launched in April 1993 it was the first magazine dedicated to PC games. Over the years it saw off many competitors, PC Review, PC Games and more recently Total PC […]