Efforts to provide SoftDisk back Issues for the Apple II and IIgs

[cturley2@aol.com (Cturley2)]

After reading a post from Jeff Blakeney on 6/24/99 that he replyed on
in the comp.emulators.apple2 to help another newsgroup reader with
locating the Apple II game "Magic Ring" - Jeff made the following
comments and suggestions on such - as follows:

"Why not contact SoftDisk Publishing and order a back issue of SoftDisk
#79?  It is a magazine on two double sided 5.25" disks that contains a
lot of interesting stuff.  Side D is the game The Missing Ring and
you'll also get articles, Print Shop graphics, a US Cities Quiz, a
Beatles' trivia game, GR8 PL8S game, a crossword puzzle, and some
utilities on the other three sides.

The last I heard, SoftDisk Publishing was still filling orders for
back issues but it would take me a couple days to get the e-mail back
myself so I'll just post about it here.  SoftDisk Publishing can be
found on the web at:

     http://www.softdisk.com

but I couldn't find any reference to back issues of publications other
than their Windows based one.  You'll have to talk to them to get more
info."

I suspect that the Side D of SoftDisk for the Apple II with the game 
'The Missing Ring' on it - is not the same as the game sought - titled
'Magic Ring' for the Apple II.  But, Jeff's post and comments got me
interested in finding out if SoftDisk still did offer back issues of
their Apple II and IIgs disks for sale.

All this sounded like something I wanted to explore for myself, having been 
a beta tester several years ago for SoftDisk IIgs.  In fact, I still have the 
entire collection of all the SoftDisk issues for the Apple II and IIgs :)

So, I called up SoftDisk to confirm if they did or did not still offer any
back issues of either SoftDisk for the Apple II or IIgs. As I expected, 
they informed me that they no longer offered back issues of SoftDisk for
sale for any platform other than the PC now.  So, clearly they informed me
that no Apple II or IIgs SoftDisk back issues are offered for sale now from 
them.

Well, after a long and friendsly discussion with them on the option of 
allowing the Apple II and IIgs users to have access to all of the Apple 
II and IIgs back issues of SoftDisk for our use and needs via some Internet
site in ShrinkIt disk archive format, my request seems to have had some 
merit of positive response.  After making this request,  I was advised that
they would seriously take my request for such into consideration and
would give me a decision on it this coming Monday.  

During my telephone conversation with SoftDisk, I was informed that although
this sounded like something that would be a good thing to do - they no longer
had any of the Apple II or IIgs SoftDisk back issues on disk in stock or
available to provide for such an option.  I told them that I had been a beta
tester years ago and still had my entire Apple II and IIgs SoftDisk collection
and that if they would allow me to - I could make ShrinkIt disk archives of
them
all for such online distribution to the remaining Apple II and IIgs users that
would like to download them for their use.

So, come Monday...you can all rest assured I'm going to give it my very best
effort to get their premission to make all of the Apple II and IIgs SoftDisk
issues available for your download needs in ShrinkIt disk archive file format.

Let's all hope they  dogive me the premission to do this - when I call them
for their decision on my request - this coming Monday.  Wish me luck!

I'll post on the results of my talk with them on this - later on, this coming
Monday.

Cheers,
Tom