The Hacking Editor

Two new faces appear in this month's Commodore Hacking. One is its new editor, while the other is its new look. I hope neither causes anyone to worry about the content of the magazine. It's all still here. C=Hacking will continue to provide leading edge technical information about the Commodore computers we all know and love. The magazine will continue to cater to the Commodore computer programmer, whether it be in the areas of sound, graphics, algorithms, disk media access, or communications.

However, the role of the magazine continues to expand. It has been shown that many people other than CBM programmers read the magazine, and programmers have requested other information besides technical content be included in the magazine. To this end, Issue 11 contains many new features, including:

• "Hacking the Mags", which will summarize the other Commodore magazines in the market place. Not everyone can read or subscribe to all the quality CBM publications out there, so this column will alert readers to specific issues that may be of interest.
• "Newsfront", which will bring the Commodore programmer and user up to date on developments in the Commodore community. The Commodore world doesn't stand still, and every programmer should be aware of the newest technologies affecting the CBM line.
• "The Error Channel", which will formalize the process of fixing errors in earlier issues. Hopefully, this will be unnecessary in most issues, but it will be here just in case.
• "Input/Output", which will allow C=Hacking readers space for comments and concerns. Many readers have sent me suggestions and comments, some C=Hacking can implement, and some C=Hacking cannot. This spot will detail which is which and why.
• Article separators. As you can see above, each article or column in the magazine is delimited by the special key, followed by a short name of the article. See "Reading C=Hacking" in this issue.
• Smaller size. The last issue was over 400kB in size, which generated many complaints. There is no need to create such a long issue, when more issues can be published. This issue should comfortably fit on two sides of a 1541 disk, a 1571 disk, or a 1581 disk.

• Stable publication dates. Circumstances (college, job hunt), made it hard for the previous editor to maintain a schedule, so no blame is laid, but the magazine does need some stability. Although possibly unrealistic, I am striving to publish C=Hacking quarterly, with the following schedule:

        Publication Date        Submission Deadline
        March, 1996             February 10, 1996
        June, 1996              May 10, 1996
        September, 1996         Auguest 10, 1996
        December 1996           November 10, 1996
  

  If article submissions keep up, a switch to bi-monthly publication might be warranted, but I won't get too far ahead. o Fully HTML-ized version of the magazine. Issue 11 contains many improvements designed to make the publication of an World Wide Web readable version of the magazine easier. Look for the HTML version of this and older issue at URL: http://www.msen.com/~brain/chacking/.

Although many of you know me or of me through previous Commodore work, this is my first editorship, so please comment on the changes I have made and what your opinions on each are. As the magazine is for you, the reader, it is always important to keep the reader happy.

Sadly, some things, like the WWW browser for C=Hacking, did not get done, but there is always next time.

Enjoy YOUR magazine,

Jim Brain (brain@mail.msen.com)
editor