D'yer remember the eighties? The eighties, eh? Remember 'em? With the Acorn Archimedes an' that? What were we like? Remember them mags what y'got? The computer mags? Wirral the source code? Remember typin' it all in be hand? If yer semicolon were outta place y'd gerra syntax error! And you try telling that to the young people of today, will they believe yer?
For those of you born this century, it might be hard to believe but - yes - the way we distributed source code back in the day was on paper. Computer magazines would be full of news, reviews, letters (like the comments section of a website), classified ads (like eBay), and code listings - like this:
1986:
Your Sinclair Magazine Issue 09, page 50
archive.org/stream/your-si…
pic.x.com/b3jgdn12kk
That's how I learned to code. Laboriously type in a few hundred lines of dense code, check it furiously for mistakes, get frustrated at a syntax error on line 115, scream "eureka!" when I got it running, and then investigated its inner workings.
A few months ago, Internet funster Matt Round announced that he was bringing back type-in mags. But, this time, for the web!
Would that work? In an era of vibe-coding, templates, and batteries-included frameworks, who on Earth would buy a magazine like this?
Well - you, I hope. Because it is now on sale and features a project written by me!
For a very reasonable £7.99, you get ten different games, projects, and demos to type in. That's a mere 79p per website! Cheaper than a C64 cassette I reckon.
The artwork by HappyToast is lush, the layout is gorgeous, and the programs are fun. Some of them you'll understand straight away, others you won't quite get until the very last character.
Could you cheat by scanning it, running OCR over the code, and then running it? Sure. But you can also hire someone to kiss your partner if you can't be bothered to put the effort in. Where's the fun in that?
Here's a sneak preview of mine:
I'd love your feedback on my project and I'd be delighted if you turned it into something awesome.
Copy-typing code - especially Max Goodhart's incredible "Quine" project - is a meditative and unusual experience. I propped up the magazine on my laptop and was delighted that I only made five typos the first time through.
Is this really how we lived? Yes! Is this something we should go back to? Well, that's a harder question to answer.
I hope you enjoy playing with what I and others have created. I bet you'll learn something new. Please remix mine and show it to your friends. If you haven't got a friend, one of the projects is a primitive Markov chain - so you can build your own digital pal.
You can buy DOCTYPE magazine now. It will make the perfect Christmas gift for all the nerds in your life.
8 thoughts on “Magazine Review: DOCTYPE”
@Edent Yikes! I sincerely hope no-one of my vintage wants to revive my starting point as a programmer, using an unbent paperclip to poke holes in a punched card in Fortran IV (and I had to steel myself to type that name in mixed case even though we only did that later).
Drat, I forgot to open with "You were lucky.."
| Reply to original comment on fosstodon.org
@Edent Quine Cube is amazing, isn't it?
| Reply to original comment on crispsandwi.ch
For the full authentic experience, have someone knock the power out from your computer just before you finish typing it out.
Also, hitting Save before completing the whole lot is not allowed.
| Reply to original comment on bsky.app
@Edent Just got it. Love the idea. I haven't had the time to type it out yet but I'm looking forward to it!
| Reply to original comment on social.sciences.re
giuspe
cannot remember which one was it, but I remember a magazine being sold bundled with a plastic ruler, and the feeling of being puzzled ("... why on earth?...") and then, after a peek inside the pages, slowly getting it 🙂
@GamesMissed
I'm sadly only getting "Network/API error" from Bookerfly as I've typed it in right now. I'll come back to it again when I have a moment. I love the magazine, thank you for your work.
Mike Thompson
We're going through the magazine together (46 year old dad and 10 year old son) and found the same thing with Bookerfly - I think it's getting the pics from open library source that's causing the problem! Any ideas how we can pick it apart? We are loving the experience of typing these in!
Do you see any errors in the JS console?
Can your browser load the JSON from https://openlibrary.org/search.json?q=isbn:9781473613546
Do you see an image at https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/14774546-L.jpg
I wonder if your parental controls are blocking the website?
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