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Oooh that issue also has a preview of the Commodore Amiga, with epic block diagrams and tech specs. Having grown up learning the ins and outs of the Amiga 500,

by unwind 4y ago

Oooh that issue also has a preview of the Commodore Amiga, with epic block diagrams and tech specs. Having grown up learning the ins and outs of the Amiga 500, that is really nostalgic. Also seeing "Computing at Chaos Manor", Jerry Pournelle's column, in the ToC gave me the warm fuzzies. He always came across as, uh I don't know, likable? Like somebody's magically technical super-nice granddad/uncle or whatever. When I read Byte I had no idea at first about his books, all I knew about him was what I gleaned from the columns. So weird. I guess in a way he was an influencer waaay before the term even existed? :)

PaulHoule 4y ago
What I remember is that something happened to Larry Niven (did he have a health problem like Heinlein did?) and then whenever there was a Niven book it was always a Niven-Pournelle book which wasn't as good as a Niven book. Pournelle was also known for his right-wing politics.
- morelisp 4y ago
  > Pournelle was also known for his right-wing politics. And Niven isn't? Niven said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants. “The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren’t going to pay for anything anyway,” Niven said.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
abecedarius 4y ago
'Super nice' is just not the vibe I got from his writing, personally. I liked him anyway. For more nostalgia there's his collection of non-computer columns, A Step Farther Out; IIRC the main topics were space and energy. Wasn't shy about despising anti-nuclear environmentalists, for a counterexample to "super nice".
gramie 4y ago
My opinion of Jerry Pournelle was that he was very opinionated, and very arrogant. I enjoyed his writing style, although I wonder if it was his editor who encouraged him to recycle many phrases that he seemed to thing were cute. I think he knew more than me about computers (not hard, because I was living in a hut in Africa, without running water or electricity, most of the time I was reading Byte), but much less than a lot of other people who could have written a better column.

by unwind 4y ago

PaulHoule 4y ago

What I remember is that something happened to Larry Niven (did he have a health problem like Heinlein did?) and then whenever there was a Niven book it was always a Niven-Pournelle book which wasn't as good as a Niven book. Pournelle was also known for his right-wing politics.

morelisp 4y ago
> Pournelle was also known for his right-wing politics. And Niven isn't? Niven said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants. “The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren’t going to pay for anything anyway,” Niven said.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

abecedarius 4y ago

'Super nice' is just not the vibe I got from his writing, personally. I liked him anyway. For more nostalgia there's his collection of non-computer columns, A Step Farther Out; IIRC the main topics were space and energy. Wasn't shy about despising anti-nuclear environmentalists, for a counterexample to "super nice".

gramie 4y ago

My opinion of Jerry Pournelle was that he was very opinionated, and very arrogant. I enjoyed his writing style, although I wonder if it was his editor who encouraged him to recycle many phrases that he seemed to thing were cute. I think he knew more than me about computers (not hard, because I was living in a hut in Africa, without running water or electricity, most of the time I was reading Byte), but much less than a lot of other people who could have written a better column.