Softdisk found a community of willing participants with motives other than making money. As the publication grew and evolved, however, it became more conventional and "mainstream", losing some of its early quirky flavor and the community that developed around it; ultimately, it was more of a normal commercial publication, sold on an annual subscription basis and in retail stores, with a paid staff and contracted freelancers to produce material, and without any disk-return requirement. Within the Apple II platform, Softdisk spawned Softdisk G-S for the Apple IIGS computer in 1989; Softdisk G-S lasted until 1997. It took advantage of the improved graphic and sound capabilities of the IIGS over earlier Apple models. Diskworld for the Macintosh (later Softdisk for Mac) was also published, and eventually Softdisk was redesigned to have a similar user interface, with many of the same staff people working on both the Mac and Apple II products. The original publication continued past the time when most people in the computer field regarded the Apple II as obsolete, but eventually ended publication in August, 1995 with issue #166 (at which point then-editor Peter Rokitski was putting it out practically singlehandedly), survived by disk magazines for other computer lines such as the Macintosh and Windows which lasted a few more years before the entire line of Softdisk disk magazines was terminated. Back issues of both Softdisk and Softdisk G-S magazines for the Apple II and IIGS can be purchased through Syndicomm. They also sell complete sets of the two magazines on CD-ROM, with each issue's disks in multiple disk image formats for use in either emulators or on actual Apple II computers. See also List of disk magazines References Disk magazines Defunct computer magazines published in the United States Apple II periodicals Magazines established in 1981 Magazines disestablished in 1995 Magazines published in Louisiana Softdisk