About Micro Cornucopia
Micro Cornucopia, sometimes shortened to Micro C, was a 1980s magazine for microcomputer hobbyists and enthusiasts. It was published in Bend, Oregon by former Tektronix engineer David J. Thompson.
The magazine, conceived as a newsletter for users of the Jim Ferguson designed Ferguson Big Board (a Z-80 based single-board CP/M computer), was published bi-monthly beginning in July 1981. It soon expanded its coverage to other board-level computers, the Kaypro computer, and general hobbyist/experimental computing, with special interest areas being robotics, interfacing, embedded systems and programming languages.
The magazine routinely published circuit diagrams and source code.
The board was based on a design which Jim Ferguson produced into a kit and sold through ads in Byte Magazine. Two versions of the board were made during its run.
The further expansion of the Ferguson Big Board came in 1982 with the introduction of the Ferguson Big Board II which pushed the coverage of Micro C..
Micro C, while initially focused on the Big Board series, eventually expanded their focus, carrying articles on a wide range of subjects, some system-specific and newsletter-like, but also covering (then) off-mainstream topics, e.g. 3D graphics, artificial intelligence, or the special needs of disabled users. They also published a 32-page catalog of CP/M and MS-DOS software, cover date Fall/Winter 1986, describing it as the second, the first having been the Spring issue.
The SOGs
The publishers of Micro C organized a free annual user conference dubbed “SOG” (Semi-Official Get-together) in Oregon. While the SOG was. a free event, the costs involved were any associated lodging and meals. Although the first two SOG events were held, little is known about them other than they apparently were held in July 1982 and July 1983.
The first time the SOG is really mentioned in depth is in the Micro C issue # 18 from June of 1984 with the following writeup on page 45 of the magazine:
After that, each year’s event was a semi-official event announced and held over three days generally with the 1989 SOG VII event being one of the last held in Bend, Oregon.
The original SOG morphed into several SOGs including the SOGEast event which was held in York, Pennsylvania, Longhorn SOG in Denton, Texas, and of course the ROBO-SOG which was run by A.P.P.L.E. early member, Mike Thyng in Seattle, Washington.
The Seattle ROBO-SOG was sponsored by the Seattle Robotics Society and featured Maze Running Robots in addition to the standard fare of barbecue and a banquet.
A fourth SOG was held in Gunnison, Colorado titled Rocky Mountain SOG. However, due to financial mismanagement, the 1990 event was eventually shunned by Micro C’s owner, with David J. Thomson saying ” I can’t, in good conscience, lend Micro C’s name to a 1990 SOG in Gunnison”SOGEast ’91 apparently was already in the planning at the time of Micro C’s cessation, but it is unknown if it was ever held.
Final issue
After publishing 53 issues over a period of nearly 10 years, Micro Cornucopia was discontinued. In the final issue number 53 published in May 1990, David J. Thompson wrote, “I’m closing down Micro C and I don’t know what I’ll be doing next.”[1] He explained his loss of interest in the magazine, and subscribers were offered the choice to switch to one of several other magazines, including Computer Language.
A number of folks approached the magazine with the idea of continuing the magazine, however, it was the feeling of Thompson that none of the suitors were capable of raising the necessary funding to continue publishing and that several were only approaching him in order to garner access to the Micro C subscriber base.
The Issue 53 became the final issue in what had been a glorious run that gave birth to a number of computer groups and live events.
Editor Notes
Portions of this article originally appeared on the Wikipedia site, however the majority of it has been heavily added to using information garnered from former readers of the magazine, participants in the SOG events, and the magazine issues themselves. No claim to copyright outside of those words written by A.P.P.L.E. staff is made.
Graphics included in the article are from a variety of sources including the A.P.P.L.E. internal library, Wikipedia and other sources of note.
The Library
Somewhere around 2010 or 2011 the entire collection was archived and originally planned for a distribution on CD-ROM which was popular at the time. However, this collection has turned into the digital collection you see included below:
