MSX Pioneer and Founder of PC-Active Wammes Witkop Dies – Computer – .Geeks

Wammes Witkop passed away this weekend after a short struggle with illness at the age of 70. He was the publisher and editor-in-chief of several computer magazines and the founder of PC-Active. In the 1980s, he became a known face in the computer world through MSX Computer Magazine.

Witkop started as editor at MSX Computer Magazine (MCM) in 1985 and became editor-in-chief in 1987. The magazine merged into MCCM a few years later and finally closed in 1997. Full archive It can be read online† Was MSX computer stand From the 80s and 90s where 22 different computer manufacturers participated and released compatible machines under their own brands. Nine million copies were sold worldwide.

Witkop was also the magazine’s founder, editor, and publisher active computer, which appeared in 1989 under that name and originated from PC-Amstrad and before that “The Computer Journal of the Amstrad/Schneider Scientist”. It came with a free floppy disk which after a while was replaced with a CD and later a DVD.

In the 2000s, PC-Active, led by Witkop, came into the spotlight several times. As it turns out from the file CD-Rs . Test That the quality of recordable discs varied widely and that some copies were very sensitive to aging – this was reflected in an increasing number of reading errors, eventually resulting in a lack of clarity. The magazine also published the news with an article that OV . chip card It can be hacked with a device that costs only 30 euros. Witkop has also several times initiated consumer rights lawsuits, such as SENA, Home Copy . FoundationSpammers and CheapTickets.

Besides PC-Active and MCM, Witkop, with his own publishing house Aktu Publishing Group, was one of the founders of several other computer magazines, including Modem/Link and Compukids. PC-Active was acquired in 2005 by HUB Publishers, which went bankrupt in 2013. It was later acquired and continued by HCC.