Tour de Microzine
| Filed under Software showcase; 1 comment. |
I’ve been collecting Scholastic Microzines for years — not only the ones I played in elementary school but all the ones I never got to try as a kid. It’s been so hard to assemble a complete collection (I’m still missing issue #32) that it seemed all the more important to preserve and archive these disks, to ensure that somewhere, a collection did exist.
So, four years ago, I took my Microzines for a ride.
@kgagne please tell us those are floppy disks in there! #TakeHubway back to the future!
— Bluebikes (@RideBluebikes) August 31, 2015
My mode of transit supported this use of their vehicles.
@kgagne whoa, those microzines make our Atari Force comics seem modern ;) Love it. More proof that bikes are timeless pic.twitter.com/Jcl0JI0gnw
— Bluebikes (@RideBluebikes) August 31, 2015
The disks’ destination: Paul Hagstrom of the Retro Computing Roundtable. Although we most frequently see each other 1,419 miles away at KansasFest, Paul and I are both residents of the suburbs of Boston. So, four years ago, when he offered to archive my disks using his Applesauce floppy disk controller, I was happy to make the loan.
Those of you following this timeline may be objecting: the Applesauce didn’t exist four years ago. True! When I gave the disks to Paul, other means of archiving were in play. But I was in no rush to get the disks back, and the delay allowed better archival methods to appear.
This past Monday, a WordPress meetup I was speaking at happened to be in Paul’s neighborhood. Rather than haul my disks to Kansas City to make the handoff, he hoofed it to the event venue. Afterward, as we walked back to Coolidge Corner, he humored me with a selfie of our clandestine exchange.
It was worth every penny.
Thank you, Paul, for serving as custodian to my edutainment for nearly half a decade. The fruits of your efforts will be appreciated for generations to come!
Sounds like I’ll have my work cut out for me finding #32! It’s taken me quite awhile to even realize that was what I was looking for! I had a vague memory of a game from elementary school in my mind. Just today I realized it was a Microzone game, and then I found it on #32. The game? A Night at Fleener’s. Hard to track these things down on scraps of memories from over a quarter century ago. In fact, until today I was almost positive the game I was thinking of was on Macintosh rather than Apple II.
Anyway, best of luck finding it! These need to be preserved!