Ced Yuen said:
Short answer:The Awards issue is keeping us very busy, and it takes a long time to go through a library of back issues.
Long answer:
We don't have a database that stretches back to the 1980s. Nor do we have someone who remembers precisely which issue we reviewed something in the 1980s. We offered Dustin Hoffman the job, but he declined.
As previously mentioned, our current system only stretches back about five years, when things went online. Before that it was all print . You know, on paper, which is what our archive is made of.
Good to see the magazine has employed someone to patronise the readers, though, eh?
Perhaps you don't realise the value of your archive of reviews - which other title has so comprehensive an archive of tests of mass-market products, going back what must be at least 30 years? You might want to think about getting that archive off, you know, paper, and online, as so many other magazines have done with some success. You might even find it's something some would pay to be able to access, given the popularity of secondhand equipment in these cash-strapped times.
As for not knowing what you reviewed and when, surley that's a bit pathetic? I'm sure the magazine used to list both current and discontinued products with their test dates in the back. What went wrong? I remember years ago phoning the magazine to ask when a product had been tested, and a nice person not only looked it up for me, but posted me a photocopy of the test.
I guess it's too much like hard work maintaining that when you are so busy? And the 'when things went online' answer is just nonsense, as I am sure this website used to have the Buying Guide on it at least 15 yrs ago. Mind you, that's possibly before you were born, as your Rain Man might have told you.
Perhaps that's another thing you might want to consider putting back online as a service to the people who pay your wages, rather than giving smartEDITED answers.