Antic (magazine)

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Antic, February 1987 - Cover art

Antic was the name of a home computer magazine devoted to the Atari 8-bit computer line (Atari 400/800 and compatibles). Its ISSN is 0113-1141. It took its name from the ANTIC chip which produced the Atari line's graphics. The first issue was published in April of 1982. While it began as a bimonthly magazine, within a year it had gone monthly. The last issue was in June/July of 1990. All told, 88 issues were published. A "Best of" book was also published.

Its main rival in the United States was ANALOG Computing, another long-lived magazine devoted to the Atari 8-bit line. A lesser rival was the short lived Hi-Res Magazine.

In 1986, Antic spun off STart Magazine, a sister publication aimed at the Atari ST line. The daughter magazine would outlive its parent by about a year. When Antic ended, it continued as a section of STart, appearing in six more issues.

[edit] Typo

One feature of Antic magazine was a program called TYPO ('Type Your Program Once', and a play on typographical error). This was a program that generated a code for each Atari BASIC line entered in a program. By comparing this code with the code in the magazine, the reader could check if they typed in the BASIC source correctly. TYPO was later succeeded by TYPO II, a smaller, faster program.

Versions of TYPO were also published and used (with permission) by Page 6 magazine.