This year’s Leipzig Book Fair, which took place from March 12 -15, featured Bit Mags—the first exhibition of classic computer magazines world-wide. The show, organized by Schreibfabrik’s René Meyer, showcased magazines from the past 30 years as well as all other kinds of computer-related publications such as novels, comics, artwork—and technical books. Aside from owning thousands of magazines and books, Meyer also holds an entry in the Guiness Book of World Records for being in possession of the largest private collection of functioning consoles and computers, selections of which were shown at the Games Convention in 2007 and 2008. There is no end to the list: he has far more than 2000 computer games, redigested thoroughly in the over 60 books he has published. And so on. And so on.

On his website he talks about Bit Mags. But as the interview with His Geekiness is only available in German, I translated the most interesting parts into English. More Images of the exhibition has Flickr User Martin-Neuhof. Have Fun!

 In the course of the last 20 years you have assembled one of the largest collections of computer/game publications worldwide. How did that start?

Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, when I was still a student,  I started to program games. In the GDR, however, hardly no one had a computer of his own. That’s why I depended on public institutions—universities, adult education centres and the like. After the reunification I wanted to possess all the computers I worked on before that never belonged to me. These formed the base for a collection that started off  for sentimental reasons and later became a useful means for my work. In the early 90s I started to write about computer-related issues as a journalist and author. I collected every snippet of information I could get and read everything I could lay my hands on: books about the history of Intel and IBM, biographies about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. My first big purchase was a collection of magazines, over 10 meters in length, consisting of complete editions of Happy Computer, ASM and other mags.

Why especially magazines?

For many years, magazines were the only periodical information source about computer and games. They are essential for understanding the evolution of the industry since it’s takeoff in the 70s. The internet covers these issues only since 10 years. Of course there are innummerable retro-websites. But they treat the development retrospectively, from the distance and often with no sense for details. The ads in the printed mags also contain a good deal of information and mirror the style of  the respective time.

 [...] 

How have computer mags changed in the course of the last 30 years?

 Today’s publications circle around the ever-same, unproductive issues: making Windows more stable. Making Windows safer, updating Windows. The OS has become so complex that hardly anyone can still grasp it; simple problems can afford hours of fixing; In the 80s the computer was instead understood as a creative tool and means to solve specific problems. Programming was a wide ranging field. You switched on your PC, you were in the BASIC-mode and you entered commands. There were books and special editions solely filled with source-code, that you could then retype and modify.

Game mags in contrast have hardly changed—the game tests have become extensive, but that is no big improvement for the consumer. In the 80s magazines were the only means of information for gamers—nowadays they are being reduced to their function of rating games and and providing bonus material like DVDs, much of which you can get faster and easier on the web. The gaming magazine market has inclined dramatically due to missed chances of keeping pace with the shifting demands.

 One focus of Bit Mags is computer literature from the German Democratic Republic.

 Back then I was already collecting each and every computer-related publication I could get my hands on, and I was a reader of the only magazine of the GDR dealing with computers, the Mikroprozessortechnik. Now it pays off that I have kept everything—even the first newsletter of the Computerclub Leipzig of 1986 and hand-written drafts of the games I developed.

 [...] 

Which of the exhibits are your dearest treasures?

  The complete edition of Telematch which was launched in 1982/83 in definitely a rarity. So is the first issue of Happy Computer—which was originally called Hobby Computer but had to be renamed from the second issue on for copyright reasons. The most treasured magazine is the January 1975 issue of the American Popular Electronics, which introduced the home computer, leading to the founding of Microsoft and many other IT companies.

 Translated by Techné editor Anna Jumped