Margot Comstock (formerly Margot Comstock Tommervik, October 11, 1940 – October 7, 2022(2022-10-07) (aged 81)[1]) was co-founder and editor of Softalk magazine, which was influential in the Apple II community, as part of a growing personal computing movement.

Career

Comstock worked as a freelance textbook editor, magazine article writer, and journalist.[2] She also enjoyed playing games,[3] and in 1979 she won more than $15,000 on the television game show Password.[4] She and her husband Allan Tommervik purchased an Apple II+ with some of the money.[5] She was enthusiastic about trying games and other software for the computer, along with its larger potential for helping people try new things.[3] They decided to start a magazine for other Apple users, using the rest of the prize money and a second mortgage on their home.[4]

Softalk

Comstock and Tommervik founded Softalk in 1980.[2] They got in contact with a company called Softape that distributed Apple II software and had a newsletter, and they arranged to take over the newsletter and develop it into an Apple II enthusiast magazine.[6] Comstock was 39 at the time.[7] She set the vision for the magazine as taking a journalistic approach, instead of focusing on programming as other contemporary computer magazines did.[2] This made the magazine accessible to Apple II users who weren't programmers.[7] Comstock's work was part of a transition in personal computing around this time, from computers being hobbyist projects to computers getting used by people interested in games and practical applications.[7]

Comstock and Tommervik published the last issue of Softalk in 1984, because fewer companies were paying for advertising, due to a larger shift in the industry, and they did not have money to print more issues.[7]

After Softalk

In 1987, a Smithsonian video history project interviewed Comstock alongside people who had published popular software for the Apple II.[2]

Comstock and Tommervik later published Softline, a game magazine with funding from Ken Williams.[3] They also published several books, including a Mac book by Doug Clapp.[8]

Comstock was an associate designer for Rama, an adventure game published in 1996.[9]

Comstock gave a keynote presentation at KansasFest in 2014.[10]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "In Remembrance". KansasFest. 2022-07-22. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Nooney, Laine (2022-10-11). "One of the most important women in Apple's history never worked for Apple". The Verge. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  3. 1 2 3 Levy, Steven (2010-05-19). Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution – 25th Anniversary Edition. "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". pp. 265–266, 398. ISBN 978-1-4493-9380-9.
  4. 1 2 Watterson, Thomas (1982-07-02). "Personal-computer fans byte into Apple Orchard and a big array of other magazines catering to them". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  5. ↑ Díaz, Gerardo Con (2019-10-22). Software Rights: How Patent Law Transformed Software Development in America. Yale University Press. pp. 181–182. ISBN 978-0-300-24932-3.
  6. ↑ Weyhrich, Steven (2010-07-02). "20 – Magazines". Apple II History: The Story of the Most Personal Computer. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Nooney, Laine; Driscoll, Kevin; Allen, Kera (2020-07-01). "From Programming to Products: Softalk Magazine and the Rise of the Personal Computer User". Information & Culture. 55 (2): 105–129. doi:10.7560/IC55201. ISSN 2164-8034. S2CID 220495006.
  8. ↑ Clapp, Doug (1984). Macintosh! complete. North Hollywood, CA : Softalk Books. ISBN 978-0-88701-009-5.
  9. ↑ "Rama for DOS (1996)". MobyGames. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  10. ↑ "Former Editor of Softtalk Magazine to Keynote Kfest". Call-A.P.P.L.E. February 28, 2014. Retrieved 2022-10-14.

Further reading

  • Doug Carlston, Software People: An Insider's Look at the Personal Computer Software Industry (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985), 168–74
  • Steven Levy, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (1994; New York: Penguin, 2001), 308–10, 388–89
  • "Smithsonian Video-history Program, Minicomputers and Microcomputers, Session One, the Brotherhood", by Jon B. Eklund, Smithsonian Institution Archives, July 31, 1987, Record Unit 9533
  • "Interview with Margot Comstock, Co-founder and Editor, Softalk Magazine", by Jason Scott, Internet Archive, June 20, 2015
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