The MagPi: back in print

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Issue 36 of The MagPi magazine was recently released as a downloadable PDF. What ticks the awesome box though is that from this issue onwards the magazine is again available in print.

I worked on ~25 of the first 30 issues of The MagPi writing articles, proof reading and undertaking layout, and recall the fantastic feeling of seeing the magazine printed (thanks especially to Ian McAlpine). With options to purchase from several online Raspberry Pi sites as well as three Kickstarter bundles (including binder) the obvious missing link was high street distribution. The MagPi has now been under the wing of the Raspberry Pi Foundation for six issues and Issue 36 is the first to be available in the high street.

I'll say that again, with emphasis: in the high street.

It takes an incredible effort to launch a new magazine and arrange for distribution to WH Smith and similar. A HUGE well done to Russell Barnes, magazine editor and the rest of the team.

With the magazine back in print what is it like?

Firstly, the print quality is exceptionally high. The front cover has a joint matt-gloss effect with the title, most of the text and the Minecraft Splat elements in gloss on a light blue background. The cover paper used is also a fairly heavy stock and will survive some bashing (as I discovered when the magazine became an inadvertent fly swat the other day). Internally each page is full-colour and exceptionally clear and easy to read. This feels like a professional magazine in one's hand because, well, it is a professional magazine. Russell and co really know their stuff.

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With an increase in size to 100 pages the spine is thick enough that the magazine can sit on a bookshelf and the identity of each issue be determined from the spine. This does show the one drawback to a magazine of this thickness in that the pages will not lie flat. It's not a big problem, but it does mean that when following code tutorials with the magazine on your desk the pages tend to curve. Firmly (but not forcefully) pressing on the magazine once or twice will open up the pages further without damaging the spine.

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Yes, you did read the above paragraph correctly: 100 pages. This is the largest normal (i.e.: excluding Special Edition 1) issue of the magazine yet. Russell and his team have produced an absolutely fantastic publication with numerous hardware and software tutorials, reviews and features. A quick flip through finds 11 pages of adverts (including three asking people to consider subscribing) which I feel is reasonable for a magazine of this size (and the adverts are all Pi-relevant). Personal favourites in this issue include Extra Lives talking about retro gaming and the book review pages as these cover not only Pi-specific books, but also books of related interest. This issue a column of the book reviews pages is devoted to security and penetration testing which is an incredibly interesting subject.

The tutorials cater for all ability levels with a straightforward LED exercise in Python on page 23 at one end of the spectrum and applying physical forces to Python games to model gravity on pages 58 to 63. This is a very clever bit of code that models the movement of spheres, or celestial bodies (think: planets and asteroids). My favourite quote in the whole issue is found here:

For each planet we have, we want to calculate its effect on every other planet


That's a tough ask! Fortunately the article goes into exquisite detail on both the maths and programming needed to accomplish this.

One downside of print though is that if errors creep in then they are irreversible (unless a new print run is undertaken). Before printing The MagPi Volume 1-3 bundles we went back through every single page to update the content for the B+ (which had not been released when we wrote the earliest issues) and to correct any errors we had subsequently found for just this reason. With The MagPi issue 36, as with every magazine, a few gremlin have made it through the editing process and hence have, in print at least, become irreversible. Take the LED article on page 23 for example. The instructions and diagram show to connect to GPIO4 and GND, but the photo shows GPIO3 and +3V3 being used. Likewise, the code listing stated to use GPIO.BOARD but the pinout diagram for the Pi is numbered for GPIO.BCM. As an introductory article, "Get started with Raspberry Pi", errors like this may confuse the reader.

Despite the occasional gremlin the overall quality of the content is first rate. A lot of effort has clearly been put into the magazine. Whether you find reading easier in print or in an electronic format is a very personal thing, and with The MagPi available in both you can take advantage of both, for example: a print magazine that you can search for text within.

The new look MagPi magazine looks great, feels great and has the superb content we all expect from the publication. Best of all, the print edition is now available for a reduced price to subscribers.

Highly recommended.
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