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And BYTE itself turned into an "advertisement-like piece on consumer electronics" in its later years. Basically computer magazines (BYTE, Creative Computing, Dr
by jhbadger 9y ago
And BYTE itself turned into an "advertisement-like piece on consumer electronics" in its later years. Basically computer magazines (BYTE, Creative Computing, Dr. Dobbs, etc.) in the 1970s and early 1980s were for hobbyists by hobbyists. But then by the late 1980s computers were big business and the media shifted. Dr. Dobbs was longest hold-out, but by the mid 1990s it had pretty much shifted into a corporate Microsoft Windows developer magazine, although in the 2000s it returned a bit to open source geekery before dying in 2014.
- ghaff 9y agoYeah, and in BYTE's case specifically, its always somewhat eclectic mix of mostly microcomputer-based topics worked OK for the hobbyists and early practitioners who tended to have pretty eclectic and wide-ranging interests themselves. But, as you say, the whole space got generally more corporate and more specialized and BYTE's lack of a real identity showed. I recall being invited to a press event when they were trying some sort of reboot in the aughts but it obviously didn't work.
- teh_klev 9y agoI used to get BYTE from circa 1983 until the very end. What was noticeable was how physically thin BYTE had gotten near the end. Lifting just a year's worth of early BYTE magazines could almost put your back out :) That said, even at the end, it was still a cut above most other computer magazines on UK newsracks.
- kevstev 9y agoI saw an archive of an issue on C, and I was shocked by two things- the enormous length- that one ran on over 300 pages, and even more-so, that a lot of the articles were still absolutely relevant today! It seems like a piece of history I was a little late to the party to. By the time I first picked one up, it had become a thin magazine not a whole lot better than PC Magazine.
- ghaff 9y agoPC Magazine itself hit something like 800 pages at some point in the 80s at which point it went from monthly to bi-weekly. It was quite good at its peak. For example, it had regular assembler and power user columns. I was certainly more corporate and product-oriented than BYTE with some massive product comparisons. I subscribed to both for a long time.
- cr0sh 9y agoHow about another - do you remember Computer Shopper? That was the go-to magazine if you were building your own machine. It's heyday was sometime in the early 1990s, when PCs were starting to branch out and become consumer-oriented items. But in the 386-486 era - that was an insane magazine to peruse (big too!). Really, one could say it marked the end of a particular era - that of hobbyist machines. While it was a technically oriented magazine, it did cater to those who wanted to build their own systems (maybe not from the component level). Once the PC became something you could easily pick up just about anywhere, it started to get thinner and thinner, then finally disappeared. That was also the end of the "mom-n-pop" style PC computer parts stores. There are a scant few that linger on today (mostly they sell used machines refurbed or rebuilt - though some have gotten into building and selling retro machines, sometimes for steep prices).
- ghaff 9y agoYep. Monstrous. Even if you didn't start building your own, whatever you had was too slow so you were always looking to upgrade components. Also the Ken Gordon Computer Shows. I actually upgraded/built a system a few days ago but even I'm pretty much out of doing that sort of thing. Wouldn't have done it if it wasn't a Linux server thing and I already had a number of parts.
- Turing_Machine 9y agoComputer Shopper was awesome, but calling it a "magazine" is a bit of a stretch. It was more like a shared catalog in which companies could rent space. :-) If I remember right, it had just enough editorial material to squeak past the line that divided the less-expensive postal rates for literature from the more-expensive rates for advertising.
- robterrell 9y agoThat eclectic mix of content made BYTE by far my favorite of the early computer magazines. (And I worked for Compute! Magazine.) "Dr. Dobbs" was a close second. And "Creative Computing" had the best BASIC games of the S-100 bus era. "Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar" was one of my favorite columns in the early BYTE. I tried to build some of his designs (and maybe one actually worked) and really enjoyed Steve Ciarcia's self-published book. It might seem weird to have this column in a computer magazine, but this was not long after the era of homebuilt computers (in the first year of his store, my dad used to actually offer to build computers when people bought them) so knowing your way around a soldering iron wasn't unusual for 1979 computer hackers.
- ghaff 9y agoI enjoyed Circuit Cellar although mostly vicariously. You were entering a period when doing interesting electronics projects tended to require more dedication and effort than I was really willing to put into it although I played around for a time. You were getting past the time when Heathkits and so forth were really practical, surface-mount was becoming common, etc. but obviously well before the current wave of Arduinos, Raspberry Pis, and so forth.
- ScottBurson 9y agoI don't think surface-mount was a thing yet in 1979. I built a Z-80 machine in 1980 -- yes, hand-soldering some of the chips onto the boards -- and I don't recall there being any surface-mounted components. Though I guess I wouldn't be surprised if the IBM PC had some, and that was only a year later.
- ghaff 9y agoProbably right. I was talking more mid-eighties timeframe. (Which Wikipedia confirms is when it became widely-used though IBM first demonstrated in 1960 or so.)
- robterrell 9y agoYeah, I hand-soldered about 1/4 of BYTE-8 in 1980. I think it was roughly 1982 that most of the computers sold in his store were pre-built.