Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: BYTE 1st Issue value? Summary: golden age of BYTE Expires: 30 May 1994 12:34:56 GMT References: <1994Apr16.032603.29253@d-and-d.com> Sender: shuford@cs.utk.edu (Richard Shuford) Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers Distribution: world Organization: University of Tennessee, Knoxville--Dept. of Computer Science Keywords: BYTE As a former member of the editorial staff (from 1978 to 1985), I'm pleased to see that somebody out there still remembers the early years of BYTE magazine. In article , librik@cory.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (David Librik) writes: > > This was the great thing about BYTE -- even well into 1980 they were still > concentrating on hardware hackers and computer hobbyists. It's not that > projects for the Apple II or TRS-80 weren't occasionally described -- just > that these machines got no more (indeed, less) coverage than systems from > Imsai or stuff you mostly built yourself out of parts from Cromemco. It may be hard to imagine these days when WalMart stacks up truckloads of "Intel Inside" boxes, but there was a time when the only way to obtain a personal computer was to wire it up yourself out of raw parts. BYTE's dominant source of energy and inspiration in its first seven years came from the hobbyists and experimenters who first dared to touch solder to silicon. Each issue included departments such as "Clubs and Newsletters" and "Unclassified Ads" that catered to this audience. The feature articles also came from the techno-tinkerers. For a long time, except for Steve Ciarcia's "Circuit Cellar", BYTE seldom commissioned the writing of an article. Each week the mailman brought in a deluge of free-lance submissions; more than enough material to feed the gaping maw of the printing press. We just had to somehow render it publishable. And the S-100-bus Z80-based machines, from Cromemco and similar firms, were the best tinkering platforms. (Rendering the articles publishable was often quite a chore: the dot-matrix printer had only recently been invented, and many over-the-transom manuscripts came in on 14-inch green bar paper PRINTED IN ALL CAPS. For an embarrassingly long time, our only editing tool was the Pentel mechanical pencil. That didn't matter much in the early days: none of the articles came in machine-readable anyway--there was no such thing as a standard format for floppy disks. Steve Ciarcia, again, was the exception: he submitted his article each month on an audio cassette encoded in Bell-103 modem tones. By the time Jerry Pournelle came on board, wielding Ezekial, things were already starting to get different, both for the industry and for the magazine.) Ah, those were the days.... Maybe someday I'll write a complete account of it. Nowadays, with the gray accountants of McGraw-Hill firmly in control, BYTE doesn't have quite the same excitement. For the record: 1969 DARPA connects first node to the ARPAnet 1971 Intel begins selling 4-bit 4004 microprocessor for $200 1972 Intel begins selling 8-bit 8008 microprocessor 1973 Scelbi Computer Consulting sells 8008-based computer kit 1973 Intel begins selling improved 8-bit microprocessor, the 8080 July 1974 Mark-8 "Personal Minicomputer" on cover of Radio-Electronics September 1974 Creative Computing magazine (by David Ahl) first published Fall 1974 Gary Kildall writes CP/M operating system for Intel January 1975 Popular Electronics puts MITS Altair 8800 on its January cover; Carl Helmers launches Experimenters' Computer System newsletter September 1975 cover date of the first issue of BYTE, edited by Carl Helmers Fall 1975 MITS announces Altair BASIC, written by W. Gates and P. Allen January 1976 first issue Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics & Ortho. Spring 1976 S. Jobs and S. Wozniak begin to collaborate October 1976 Harry Garland advertises Cromemco Z80 S-100 processor board October 1976 Lee Felsenstein's Processor Technology Sol computer announced April 1977 1st West Coast Computer Faire: Apple II, Commodore PET announced June 1977 Apple II computer is first advertised in BYTE August 1977 Radio Shack announces first TRS-80 December 1978 Atari, known for games, announces computers: models 400 and 800 June 1979 Texas Instruments brings out TI-99/4 Summer 1980 Bellovin, Truscott, and Ellis invent Usenet at UNC-CH and Duke April 1981 Osborne Computer Co. introduces Osborne I with bundled software August 1981 IBM announces the Personal Computer, based on 4.77 MHz 8088 April 1982 Xedex sells Z80 card for IBM PC to make up for lack of software June 1982 Commodore introduces C-64 January 1983 Apple Computer releases the Lisa February 1983 ARPAnet converts to exclusive use of TCP/IP protocol suite September 1983 Osborne Computer Co. files for bankruptcy October 1983 IBM unleashes the PCjr upon the world January 1984 Apple Computer unveils the Macintosh Most of the above dates come from the timeline that appeared in the 10th anniversary issue of BYTE in September 1985 (Vol 10, num 9). ======================================================================== Afterword: The above timeline was not intended to show all important events of the era, but just to give Usenet readers a sense of the gradual development of the computer industry and the computer business. Here follows a supplemental list of events, which I received by email long after the above posting. ...RSS ======================================================================== From dlynes@mail.bc.rogers.wave.ca Thu Dec 4 09:38:55 1997 Date: Thu, 04 Dec 1997 00:19:39 -0800 From: Daniel Bruce Lynes To: shuford@CS.UTK.EDU Subject: "...a news posting I made a while back" This message is regarding your timeline in your usenet news posting. I thought I'd point out that you're missing a number of significant events: - Commodore Vic-20 (first home computer under £1,000) - Commodore +4, 16, 128 (128 supported CP/M) - Sinclair ZX80, ZX81 (first computer under £100), ZX Spectrum - Bally 2000 (source code appeared for this machine in a 1974 Creative Computing issue) - The Compute! family of magazines (first popular magazine to feature as its main attraction complete BASIC and opcode code for commercial quality software) - Ahoy!, Commodore Magazine, and R U N (following Compute!'s lead) - Radio Shack Coco 1, 2, and 3 (all based on the Motorola 6809) - Commodore PET was the first (and only, to the best of my knowledge) home computer to support the IEEE bus (which never caught on) - Commodore Amiga (initially based on the Motorola 68000 - Apple IIc, Apple IIe, and Apple IIgs - KIM-45 (another hobbyist's computer, based on the Motorola 6502 that used a 7-segment display, LED's, RS-232 port, and a hexadecimal keypad for opcode entry) Now, I may only be 28, but most of these computers are quite clear in my memory, having started out on a PET, progressing to a Sinclair ZX81 (because I could afford one...the PET I had to use at school), then to a Vic-20 (it could do assembly language and opcode, and data statements in BASIC), to an Apple II, back to a PET (when I realized how closed the Apple architecture was), and then finally onto an XT. The KIM-45 on the other hand seemed pretty useless to me, personally. By the time I saw one of those, I had gone back to doing opcode using the PET's MLM. ttfn. ======================================================================== Flag Day, A.D. 1998 Now I can add some sad additional entries to this timeline. May 1998 McGraw-Hill sells BYTE magazine to CMP Publications, along with several other magazine titles. June 1998 CMP declares BYTE dead. July 1998 Cover date of the last issue of BYTE. In this last issue, the "20 Years Ago In BYTE" item shows the cover of the July 1978 issue, with Babbage's Difference Engine--the issue that came off the presses the day I started work at BYTE. ...RSS