4 ms·

To be fair, out of these 256 pages, 200 are really just ads. Your point still stands, but the actual substance is a lot smaller than you describe.

• zozbot234 4y ago
  The advertisements are among the most interesting things about old magazines like BYTE, though. They preserve a snapshot of what the computer industry was like back then. Even the pricing information alone is very valuable.
  • hota_mazi 4y ago
    Oh absolutely! Browsing through these pages today, I find myself reading the ads a lot more than the actual articles, which haven't aged well. But back then... man, these ads were cancer and they made up 80% of the weight and price of the magazine.
    • rbanffy 4y ago
      Those ads made the magazine possible and accessible. Of course, McGraw Hill made a profit, but BYTE would be a lot more expensive if it were not for the ads. One interesting point about the ads is that the time it took for a new technology to appear in the ads was usually much shorter than for it to appear in articles. In that sense, the ads were opportunities to peek into the near future (and, in the case of vaporware, alternate timelines). I like the way magazines like BYTE are preserved and I hope we preserve our current tech as well.
• sbf501 4y ago
  Counterpoint taken.