PC-Consument publications

When I was a kid (last century), the internet as we know it didn't exist yet. Since 1993 there's internet in the Netherlands, but before the internet, programs were spread on data cassettes, 5¼ floppy discs, 3½ micro diskettes, in book form as type-in program, or tune in to a packet radio station.

I was subscribed to a few computer magazines and in one of them I had a few publications. Those were published in a Dutch computer magazine called "PC Consument", which translates to "Personal Computer Consumer".

I've been in doubt if I'd republish those publications again. Mainly for a few reasons;
1. The stuff I made as a kid is very childish (which kinda makes sense)
2. Times have changed; what was funny/innovative or sharable in 1996 doesn't meet standards in 2024.
3. Most of the code doesn't run natively anymore on modern operating systems.
4. Everything that PC Consument published of me was in the Dutch language.

Still, I've decided to share a selection of those publications. Keep in mind the age of this content though.

Work in progress
I'm still working on a download that contains all files below in a structured manner, and a way to actually execute them.

PC Consument 3rd volume, issue 7

September 1996

I submitted this publication on the 2nd of July 1996 at the age of 12, and it contained a few small programs that were all programmed in QBasic:

SHARE.BAS
A small "shareware" program that I called "Meer in één" (More in one).
ASCII.BAS
A small experiment that I used to learn about key presses in GWBasic.
CODE.BAS
A tiny gimmick that asks for a secret code. Enter the wrong code, and the computer starts rebooting.
DATUM.BAS
This code shows the current date and time in human-readable format.
DRIVERS.BAS
This utility lists all available drives. English isn't my native language and at the age of 12 I didn't know the difference between drives and drivers, hence the name.

PC Consument 4th volume, issue 6

July/August 1997

I submitted this publication on the 22nd of April 1997 at the age of 13, and it contained some programs that were all programmed in QBasic:

ADRES.BAS
A small utility to store addresses and phone numbers.
Graphical tools
- PIC2SPF.BAS - Converter that converts PIC files to SPF (Stefan Picture File) files.
- PICVIEW.BAS - An image viewer for images in the PIC format.
- SPFVIEW.BAS - An image viewer for images in the SPF (Stefan Picture File) format.
Audio tools
Sound cards for computers weren't always available. In the early years we only had a simple PC speaker. With PWM (Pulse Width Modulation), it was possible to produce some tones through them.
I utilised this in the following two programs.
- PLAYER.BAS - A player that shows the files and plays them.
- DISCO.BAS - Plays music files for with some disco light effects.
Games
- KNIGHT.BAS - A text based maze game I built with two friends from the primary school.
- LINGO.BAS - Lingo, but because it's simply not implemented, it's a bit more difficult; it doesn't tell which letters do exist but in the wrong position. A text file contains the dictionary.
- SCHUIF.BAS - A sliding puzzle which, if you are patient enough, displays the alphabet.

PC Consument 4th volume, issue 7

September 1997

I submitted this publication on the 24th of June 1997 at the age of 13. This publication contains mostly VGA (Video Graphics Array) demos; testing on plotting graphics.

DRAW.BAS
At school I had an art assignment. But since I'm motorically impaired that was quite a challenge. After school, I made this piece of art, my way. With my keyboard.
DROPPING.BAS
Another visual experiment, at that time inspired by a rain shower.
LOOP.BAS
I made some digital disco lights, also as an experiment working with video graphics.
NDRLND.BAS
This program plots an image of the map of the Netherlands, where I am born.
PIXELS.BAS
Yet another visual experiment with pixels and colors.
LOOP2.BAS
A follow-up on the earlier LOOP.BAS (see above).

PC Consument 4th volume, issue 9

November 1997

I submitted this publication on the 5th of September 1997 at the age of 14.
This publication contained programs for MS-DOS written in QuickBasic 4.5, and for Windows 95 written in Visual Basic 5.

CDASC.EXE
This tool for Windows 95 was written because I had many CD-ROM disks with games on it. To make it possible to add shortcut icons in Windows, I created a tool that asked to insert the correct disc so you knew which one to put in.
CRACKER.EXE
I found loads of cheat codes for different games. I've put this into this database tool where it was possible to look them up.
I had two versions, this one is for Windows 95.
GAME.EXE
I found loads of cheat codes for different games. I've put this into this database tool where it was possible to look them up.
I had two versions, this one is for MS-DOS.
GALGJE.EXE
Galgje is Dutch for Hangman, a simple game. This is a Windows 95 Hangman game I wrote.
MIDI.EXE
Because storage was limited, if you wanted to have music, MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) was a good solution. It didn't contain audio fragments, instead, it contained instructions for instruments which then are synthesized by the computer.
This program was a very lightweight player for MIDI files for Windows 95.

PC Consument 5th volume, issue 2

March 1998

I submitted this publication on the 13th of December 1997 at the age of 14.

Coming soon
I am currently reviewing this content. Since it's pretty old, I want to look into a proper way to get this working as well (probably with DOSBox).
Stay tuned!

PC Consument 5th volume, issue 4

May 1998

I submitted this publication on the 1st of March 1998 at the age of 14.

Coming soon
I am currently reviewing this content. Since it's pretty old, I want to look into a proper way to get this working as well (probably with DOSBox).
Stay tuned!

PC Consument 5th volume, issue 8

October 1998

I submitted this publication on the 4th of August 1998 at the age of 14.

Coming soon
I am currently reviewing this content. Since it's pretty old, I want to look into a proper way to get this working as well (probably with DOSBox).
Stay tuned!