To me (in Ireland) Personal Computer World was as British as the BBC and faithfully served its readership over a 30 year period that saw the computer change our society. I have no doubt that future historians will study each of its many editions to help understand the evolution of computing.

Its many contributors can be rightly proud to be part of such a wonderful publication. May they all find success and happiness in their future careers

As a lad going to secondary school, I remember these magazines every month in 1984-1985 at Clapham Junction’s only newsagent. I got the issue with the Monkey, Sinclair QL and then Auntie Beeb, BBC Micro, and of course the Acorn Electron, and of course of the ZX Spectrum. Wow! What a loss!

I would rather have the flaming News of the World / The Sun to die a miserable death in Wapping, instead we have to live now without PCW UK. Sad day in British Computer publishing.

Best luck to all the journalists, especially our version of Dick Pountain, Guy Kewney for entertaining with comment during PCW. I you are not out of work for long …

I would like to thank all the past contributors for some great work, everything I know about computers was learnt from these pages, including my change to Linux.

Good luck to you all EXCEPT for the guy who decided to close you down, he may rot in hell!

To Barry, Nigel, Guy, Tim and the others if you decide to write elsewhere please send me the link

Having read pcw on and off over the years (still have issue one) I will miss it dearly, even if it was not what it once used to be, as it had moved with the times, and the ‘majorities’ needs, which went from technical, to less technical over the years.

It is a shame the staff were not informed it was going to be the last issue, it would have been a ideal chance for them to make a final, tribute edition to a magazine that has shaped and formed many people over the years, a true part of history.

Sadly, the last issue was just a normal one, without the staff being given that chance to say goodbye to the mag and the readers.

Yes people still do like to get their hands dirty inside the innards of machines, be it computers, motorbikes, cars, or whatever, but the majority, and it has to be said, the bigger majority, don’t.

I notice that no women seem to have contributed to this debate, and I don’t doubt some did subscribe to the magazine, but women buy computers as much as men, especially laptops, and none that I know of want anything to do with insides of the machine, I know by the telephone calls I get for help sometimes.

As sad as I am like you all, at the magazines demise, maybe PCW was a specialists magazine, the trouble was it was too specialized for most people.

I’d bought odd issues of PCW until I was working in Germany in 1990. For some reason its mix of reviews and enthusiasm for it subject at that moment fired my imagination and thus required a monthly trip to the Hauptbahnhof to get the next issue. Back in England I became a regular subscriber… just in time for the 15th anniversary issue.

I disagree with Steve’s earlier comment that it was becomming “remote”. This was what PCW was all about – the enthusiasts mag for people who wanted to leap in and twiddle. If you want them to work, take the covers off and find out why they dont and fix em. Of course, this is the attitude of earlier engineers who went everywhere in their new fangled horseless carriages. In time these things are mass produced and we expect them to work… and we take em to garages/workshops to get them fixed. Nonetheless, people are still tinkering with and servicing their cars just as much as some of us are tinkering under the hood with our (and our friends) PC’s to get them to do the business the way they we know they should and not the way that hardware and software vendors are trying to tell us they should. Where do you go for the information on what to tweek where – well… PCW obviously.

I would agree that ComputerActive is no substitute and I wont be taking it. In fact, I doubt there is a substitute. I shall have to do something for my withdrawal symptoms when I dont get my monthly fix.

Finally, I salute all the writers, editors and contributors to PCW who have entertained, eductaed and informed me over the last near 20 years. Thank you for a great read. I’m already missing it.

I bought my first copy of PCW to take on holiday to Tenerife in September 1982 and have been a regular reader ever since. I became a subscriber to PC Magazine soon after it came on the UK market, and stayed until the closure of the UK edition, when I switched my subscription to PCW. I am convinced that the first copy of PC magazine that I purchased (in a UK newsagent) was an American edition.

Quite a number of the commentators seem to have been around forever, particularly Guy Kewney and Barry Fox. More recently (a couple of years back) an article in PCW by Nigel Whitfield inspired me to buy a Topfield PVR.

My favourite sections of PCW were always the Hands On (Power User in PC Magazine), because they taught me how to extend the functionality of my PC using macros and tweaks. Now of course, this stuff is readily available on the Internet at no cost, but I can’t read this whilst I am sat on the crapper or watching Grandstand (also gone) on a Saturday afternoon.

I shall miss PCW.