Download Commodore Free issue 7

Commodore Free
Interview with Wills Patten
By Commodore Free Magazine
Q. can you introduce yourself to our reader
son and wife, I have never been sorry. I now have a
lot of respect for what my pee cee can do for my
Commodore.
A. I am 79 years young and a passion for
Commodore beginning with a Vic-20 in 1984. I am
married to a wonderful saintly lady (Phyllis) who,
while not a Commodore user herself (uses an
emachine) supports me and encourages me with my
devotion to Commodore.
Q. What is your favourite Commodore magazine
A. At present I subscribe to no Commodore
magazine, since my predominant love in the
Commodore world is for GEOS. I used to take the
Q Wills can you tell us about your magazine
A. My Journal is called GEOS Publication. Currently
it has been a 16 page publication, the first 8 pages of
which are devoted specifically to Commodore
Computers and Commodore GEOS predominantly.
The second 8 pages (maximum allowed by
geosPublication) is a conglomeration of humor,
Documentations on history, trivia, pee cees,
cartoons, self-esteem, etc. One
of my obstacles was I began
getting further and further
behind in keeping up with
getting issues out
on time due to
various obstacles
related to keeping
my Commodore
system operative. At
one time my
subscriptions were
almost 200 strong, but
currently has reduced to
just under 50, which tends
to be the story of many Commodore
publications.
CMD Magazine, and before that RUN and one or two
others.
Q. Do you have any other projects on the go with the
closure of your magazine
A. Well, at first a thought I would just re-retire (I am a
retired minister) from the desktop publishing
business, and just dabble in basic programming and
maybe either machine language or GEOS
programming. I may still do some of this. But then I
got the inspiration that I do not yet wish to be put out
to pasture... yet. I am having a dialog with Gaelene
to see if I can convert my present
GEOS Publication
website to a
predominantly
personal website with
perhaps a little
information and
promotion of another
publication with 8-16
pages, probably not
copywrited
as GEOS Publication
is. It will be partly a family website, partly to publicise
this new publication. It will be financed partly by me
and freewill contributions. It will be a conglomeration
of documents, including Commodore, pee cees,
humour, self-esteem and moderate Christianity,
cartoons, and God only knows what else.
Q. I understand you have now closed the magazine
can you explain why
A. The above explains some of the reasons. Beyond
this, due to lack of revenue, and trying to keep it
going with money out of my wife and my joint bank
account, the margin of profit has been zilch for
several years. I do not have the cash to invest in my
business as I should be able to. Another reason is
an inexcusable fault of my own, somehow I lost my
mailing list, and due to a mix-up in up-grading my HD
I lost a file of my current mailing list. If I find a fairly
current mailing list (my good wife correctly tells me I
am a poor housekeeper in my office) I intend to put
out one more issue, which will give my currently
paying
subscribers (I have more than I should
complimentary subscriptions) some options on future
alternatives they will have.)
Q. Why use Commodore what was the pull of the
machine
A. My continuing devotion to Commodore is today as
it was in the 1980s, the comparatively ease of use
and learning how to use it. Pee Cees are so much
more complicated, but I have not found them to
difficult to use for my own needs. But as I have
always insisted, I have always loved my Commodore
system first and foremost, and primarily use my pee
cee system to support and enhance my Commodore
work.
Q. Tell us about Commodore what machines do you
own
Q. What do you think Commodore failed to do in its
history
A. My system consists of A Commodore 128, 1571
drive, FD-2000 drive (currently inoperative), a
RAMLink, 2 gig HD, Zoom Modem, and a
Commodore 1802 Monitor. I also have a pee cee, an
emachine with 40 gigs, 3 1/2" drive, HD, monitor,
external zip drive; all of which I consider supporting
hardware for my Commodore. I obtain and download
for my Commodore my graphics and documents for
use in my Journal. While my first love has and and
always will be my Commodore system, finally
succumbing to accept as a gift a pee cee from my
My thinking on this may have some disagreement
with other Commodore users, and I respect that.
However here is my thinking on this:
(1) I think Commodore executives were too afraid to
spend money for advertising more and often
venturing out and manufacturing for sale some
other brainstorm upgrades and improvements etc.
(for example, the C65) Perhaps they were afraid they
could not do this and maintain their high salaries.
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