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Letter to the Editor: Name that software

The following letter to the editor ran in Volume 14, Issue 3 (September 2009) of Juiced.GS. It has to date received no responses. If you have any suggestions on this topic, could you please comment on the blog or email the editor?

Dear Juiced.GS

I’ve been trying to track down a game from my early youth that ran on an Apple II, and was wondering if you could help me.

Neither a game nor a drawing tool, this program was more like a Print Shop in which you build a creature (arms, legs, head, etc.), put it before a number of backdrops (such as a moonscape), then print it out. I encountered it in grade school, so it must’ve been an 8-bit program, circa 1988. In my quest to find this classic title, I’ve tried Creature Creator by DesignWare, Print Shop Companion, and Newsroom, all of which looked promising—but none of them was the program I remembered.

Asi Lang
via the Internet

Asi,

Unfortunately, this one doesn’t ring a bell among the Juiced.GS staff. Since you tried the program in school, maybe it was part of an edutainment compilation, like Scholastic’s Microzine, instead of a standalone application.

Do any readers recognize this title? Please email us if so!

–Ken Gagne

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Retro reviews vs. cutting edge

Juiced.GS often reviews hardware, software, and publications that are relevant to the Apple II community. With products like the GS RAM card, Nibble DVD, and Dungeons & Desktops book, there’s no shortage of new and exciting material for us to scrutinize.

But in focusing exclusively on the new, we may be overlooking the history that surrounds the Apple II. A staff writer came to me with an idea for a review of a piece of hardware that hasn’t been manufactured in about 30 years.  I was initially hesitant to pursue the topic, as the hardware has little modern application and may be hard for readers to find.  But he suggested we should go for the nostalgic, not practical, angle: “I love to read about cool products that I may have missed the first time around and wouldn’t mind having to troll eBay to seek out.”

He may have a point.  What do you think?  Should reviews prefer modern material?  Or would you like to see Juiced.GS cover classic/vintage tech as well?