64'ler Magazine (1988)
Turkey's Beloved 52-Issue Commodore 64 and Amiga Monthly Edited by Abdurrahman Pala
64'ler was Turkey's pioneering monthly home-computer and gaming magazine, published in Istanbul by Safa Tanıtım Hizmetleri across 52 issues from April 1988 to July 1992 and edited throughout its entire run by Abdurrahman Pala. Serving Commodore 64 and Amiga enthusiasts nationwide, it educated an entire Turkish generation through game walkthroughs, POKE cheat listings, and BASIC, 6502 Assembly, and AMOS programming tutorials.
Istanbul Launch, Walkthrough Maps, POKE Cheats, and Community Spirit
Following an earlier foray with MSX Bilgisayar, journalist and publisher Abdurrahman Pala launched 64'ler in April 1988 through Safa Tanıtım Hizmetleri, naming the monthly after the 64-kilobyte RAM ceiling shared by the booming Commodore 64 market in Turkey. Alongside contributors including Murad Omay, Murat 'Mac' Adanç, Şahin Derya, and Orhan Cevher, the magazine became a lifeline in an era before local localization or internet access—delivering exhaustive adventure walkthroughs, hand-drawn sprite maps, infinite-lives POKE memory addresses, and its beloved 'Postacı Memduh' reader mailbag that connected bedroom players across Turkey.
Teaching BASIC, 6502 Assembly, and AMOS to Future Turkish Developers
Crucially, 64'ler paired game coverage with rigorous, accessible computer-science education when Turkish-language technical manuals were virtually nonexistent. Readers typed in multi-page BASIC listings, studied register-level 6502 Assembly tutorials explaining hardware sprites, raster interrupts, and SID chip synthesis, and—as the Commodore Amiga gained momentum in the early 1990s—learned 16-bit game creation through AMOS BASIC columns and dedicated 64'ler Professional supplements. Concluding with its 52nd issue in July 1992, 64'ler directly seeded Turkey's Amiga demoscene, early commercial studios of the 1990s, and subsequent gaming periodicals.