Re: Byte Magazine: 18 Vintage issues, 1985-1986

[Michael Black <blackm00@CAM.ORG>]

On 27 Jul 1999, Eric Smith wrote:

> "Robert H. Morrison" <RMorrison@hitex.de> writes:
> > I have BYTE intermittent from 1974 and complete after 1976, but
> 
> The 1974 and early 1975 issues are *extremely* valuable.  :-)
> 
> 
I caught that too, but thought it would be impolite to say anything.

The first issue of Byte was of course the September 1975 issue, of which I
actually have two copies.

If we're talking about rarities, I actually had the January 1975 issue of 
Popular Electroanics (the real one, not the one masquerading as such on
the newsstands today), which of course had the Altair 8800 on the cover.
I must have the article around somewhere, but at one point trying to
reduce the back issues, I must have sifted out the useful stuff to save,
and recycled the rest of the issue.

I still have the issue of Radio Electronics in 1974 (was it the August
issue?) that had the article on the Mark-8.

Note that neither of those articles are particularly informative, just of
historical importance.

I still have what could be interpreted as the germ of Byte.  In the
November 1972 issue of 73 Magazine (for radio amateurs), there was an
article about building your own computer.  It wasn't a construction
article, but dealved into what was needed to build one (in fair detail for
the time), and some possible ways to implement it and some suggestions for
actual hardware.  It was interesting in itself, since it was informative,
and probably was the only mainstream article about building your own
computer at the time.  (I know there was the Amateur Computer Society that
had a newsletter that dealt with such things, but I sure never heard of it
until after Byte started, and so it could hardly be considered
mainstream.)  But Wayne Green published 73 (still does though I think
it's on it's last legs), and he started Byte with Carl Helmers.  Either he
saw early that there might be interest in home computers and so published
the article, or the article primed him to be ready to see an opportunity
when the Altair hit the newsstand.

How did people find out about Byte at the beginning?  I knew about it
because in the summer of '75, there were ads in 73 announcing the soon to
be launched magazine.

    Michael