3 ms·

>Now it's just colour puke and buzz-words. Well said. The rot started some years earlier. See BYTE and other contemporary computer mags going downhill or shutt

by vram22 8y ago

>Now it's just colour puke and buzz-words. Well said. The rot started some years earlier. See BYTE and other contemporary computer mags going downhill or shutting down, after a great run of many years, for example. Those computer mags used to have pages and pages of code listings, and text explaining the code (even though they still had ads for products, you could either ignore them, or read them as I often did, to learn about new tech, and some of the products were even good and interesting). Same thing happened with National Geographic magazine, sadly. My dad had a lifelong subscription to NatGeo gifted to him by a mentor who he lived with in the States, a friend of his father, while doing college there. We used to get the issues in India each month (when not stolen by the postal staff, which happened sometimes). As I grew up, I noticed the mag getting thinner, less pages for articles and photos, and more for ads.

vram22 8y ago
Many of the articles in those earlier computer mags were really good and very educative. (I used to stand in regular new-book shops or roadside second-hand book shops in Chennai and Pune, reading such mags (to decide which ones to buy with my limited budget, by reading parts of many articles in them) until my feet hurt, and then leaving, after buying a few to read fully at home.) Ditto with the British Council Library, from where I used to invariably borrow 4 books (the limit) at a time. They had very good books by British computer book authors, on many topics and parts of the h/w and s/w stack. I remember reading a very good article about Huffman coding with an explanation, figures and C code or pseudocode, by Jonathan Amsterdam, in a BYTE issue. BYTE used to have specials sometimes, notable ones were the issues on Smalltalk and Lisp (one each), in which articles about those subjects filled almost the entire magazine. The Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar column by Steve Ciarcia was great too, so much that I used to read it even though I did not have a background in electronics or hardware. In fact, for some issues, BYTE's cover art by Robert Tinney became collector items. https://www.google.co.in/search?q=byte+mag+cover+artist https://www.google.co.in/search?q=byte+mag+cover+artist DDJ (Dr. Dobb's Journal (of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia was the original name, IIRC) and CUJ (C User's Journal, later became C and C++ UJ), were excellent too. Many really good articles on C and C++, both on the language and algorithms for various purposes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_(magazine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_(magazine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dobb%27s_Journal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dobb%27s_Journal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/C%2B%2B_Users_Journal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/C%2B%2B_Users_Journal https://www.google.co.in/search?q=steve+ciarcia https://www.google.co.in/search?q=steve+ciarcia https://circuitcellar.com/how-it-all-began/ https://circuitcellar.com/how-it-all-began/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ciarcia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ciarcia I miss those days, dammit.
- vram22 8y ago
  From Ciarcia's How it all began article above: [ While most people waited until the 8080 or 6502 to discover computing, back in 1974 I had an 8008 homebrew system running immediately after it appeared (see Photo 1). I paid $120 (converts to about $500 today) for that 8008 chip, and to this day, I remember sweating as I powered it up the first time. Would it be puff, pop, or hum? Well, it worked. ] The parts about the subterfuge and skullduggery going on in the industry then are also interesting.
  - vram22 8y ago
    The part in Ciarcia's "How it all began" article starting with: "During the same decade all this was going on at my end, BYTE was experiencing significant changes as well." is also very interesting. Several paragraphs from there describe how he started his own magazine, Circuit Cellar, after BYTE changed direction.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  It's weird how modern times made technology fluff... You can see how 40s US or CAN Army videos were so pragmatic yet detailed.
  - vram22 8y ago
    Haven't seen those, but can imagine, having seen roughly similar stuff from earlier.

by vram22 8y ago

vram22 8y ago

Many of the articles in those earlier computer mags were really good and very educative. (I used to stand in regular new-book shops or roadside second-hand book shops in Chennai and Pune, reading such mags (to decide which ones to buy with my limited budget, by reading parts of many articles in them) until my feet hurt, and then leaving, after buying a few to read fully at home.) Ditto with the British Council Library, from where I used to invariably borrow 4 books (the limit) at a time. They had very good books by British computer book authors, on many topics and parts of the h/w and s/w stack. I remember reading a very good article about Huffman coding with an explanation, figures and C code or pseudocode, by Jonathan Amsterdam, in a BYTE issue. BYTE used to have specials sometimes, notable ones were the issues on Smalltalk and Lisp (one each), in which articles about those subjects filled almost the entire magazine. The Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar column by Steve Ciarcia was great too, so much that I used to read it even though I did not have a background in electronics or hardware. In fact, for some issues, BYTE's cover art by Robert Tinney became collector items. https://www.google.co.in/search?q=byte+mag+cover+artist https://www.google.co.in/search?q=byte+mag+cover+artist DDJ (Dr. Dobb's Journal (of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia was the original name, IIRC) and CUJ (C User's Journal, later became C and C++ UJ), were excellent too. Many really good articles on C and C++, both on the language and algorithms for various purposes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_(magazine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_(magazine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dobb%27s_Journal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dobb%27s_Journal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/C%2B%2B_Users_Journal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/C%2B%2B_Users_Journal https://www.google.co.in/search?q=steve+ciarcia https://www.google.co.in/search?q=steve+ciarcia https://circuitcellar.com/how-it-all-began/ https://circuitcellar.com/how-it-all-began/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ciarcia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ciarcia I miss those days, dammit.

vram22 8y ago
From Ciarcia's How it all began article above: [ While most people waited until the 8080 or 6502 to discover computing, back in 1974 I had an 8008 homebrew system running immediately after it appeared (see Photo 1). I paid $120 (converts to about $500 today) for that 8008 chip, and to this day, I remember sweating as I powered it up the first time. Would it be puff, pop, or hum? Well, it worked. ] The parts about the subterfuge and skullduggery going on in the industry then are also interesting.
- vram22 8y ago
  The part in Ciarcia's "How it all began" article starting with: "During the same decade all this was going on at my end, BYTE was experiencing significant changes as well." is also very interesting. Several paragraphs from there describe how he started his own magazine, Circuit Cellar, after BYTE changed direction.
agumonkey 8y ago
It's weird how modern times made technology fluff... You can see how 40s US or CAN Army videos were so pragmatic yet detailed.
- vram22 8y ago
  Haven't seen those, but can imagine, having seen roughly similar stuff from earlier.