Hacker News Reader

Comment by wiz21c | Hacker News Reader

500+ pages... Colossal !

Of which more than half (of what I've skimmed through, at least) are ads. Makes FB at 1/4 ad content seem even reasonable.

The ads in a publication like Byte (or many of the other computer magazines of the day) were a different beast. Quite often, they were the only way to learn about new products and the products advertised were relevant to the audience of the magazine. It is a far cry from the mass market advertising found on Facebook (or television, or radio).

Yep. The time when print magazines and ads were actually interesting.

They still are FASCINATING. People just trying anything. Personal testimonials, sexual imagery, crazy far out futuristic art, it's all there in the ads.

Right. They were ads for stuff you likely actually found interesting, not ads for reverse mortgages and dubious real estate investments.

Computer Shopper, another (and much, much larger, in terms of page count) magazine of the era was essentially nothing but ads. It had just enough editorial material to qualify it as a "magazine" under postal regulations (magazines had to pay less postage than pure advertisements). It sold like hotcakes.

Yep. I used to buy Computer Shopper issues for the ads. They were one of the best ways to find out about new components becoming available, and - of course - you were always looking for the lowest price for memory, power supplies, cases, etc. This was back when building your own PC from parts was much more common than it is today.

I kinda miss the "Computer Shopper era" TBH.

Remember when instead of ads having urls or QR codes, there was a pre-addressed postcard "Reader Service Card" in the back of the magazine with numbers for each ad that you could get more information about, by circling the numbers and mailing in the card?

p. 511: Reader Service

Check out some of the cool company names on that page: Some of them are such exuberant techno-babble!

BOB'S CHARTS. COMPUFUN. COMPUPRO/GODBOUT. COSMIC COMP ULTD. CYBERNETICS INC. DATAFACE. EXPOTEK. ELECTROLABS. GILTRONIX. JAMECO ELECTR (I LOVED their catalogs!). LEGEND INDUSTRIES. MACROTRONICS INC. MICRO DATA-TEK. MICRO-BAUD INC. MICROHOUSE. MICROMAIL. MICROSOFT. MICROTAX. MINI MICRO MART. MOUNTAIN VIEW PRESS. MUSYS CORP. NETRONICS. PEGASUS DATA SYS. PERCOM DATA. PI-TECH. PROTECTO ENTERPR. QUADRAM CORP. QUASAR DATA PROD INC. DATGO. RADIO SHACK CIV. RED BARON COMP PROD. S-100 INC. SCION CORP. SINCLAIR RESEARCH. STACKWORKS. SUBLOGIC. SUNTRONICS. SUPERSOFT. TECH-DATA. TELETEK. TELEVIDEO INC. TERMINALS TERRIFIC. TERRAPIN INC. THUNDERWARE. US ROBOTICS. VIDEX. VISICORP INC. VOTRAX. VR DATA. VYNET CORP. WINTEK CORP. XITEN SYSTEMS. XAVAX CORP. YORK-10. ZEPHYR INC. ZOBEX.

Inquire No: [1..438] Page No: [1..511]

To get further information on the products advertised in BYTE, fill out the reader service card with your name and address. Then circle the appropriate numbers for the advertisers you select from the list. Add an 18-cent stamp to the card, then drop it in the mail. Not only do you gain information, but our advertisers are encouraged to use the marketplace provided by BYTE. This helps us bring you a bigger BYTE. The index is provided as an additional service by the publisher, who assumes no liability for errors or omissions.

https://twitter.com/tschak/status/1394000556419547136

Looking back at it today, the ads are so interesting ! So many different products/solutions out there

Whenever I browse scans of old magazines like this I find the ads have a real historical value. Many are a rich snapshot: the state of the art (for that publication's audience), pricing, language/vernacular, style, and even hints at how business was done (eg phone numbers, PO boxes, SASEs, shipping costs, etc.) I'm not quite so optimistic about the long term value of the hyper personalized Taboola chum box :/

yeah, although sibling commenters are complaining about the type of adverts seen on today's platforms being different; namely that byte and computer shopper had ads that were 'useful' or 'interesting' by some definition, compared to youtube or facebook.

i think this often reflects more on the viewer, and the type of content they access, than on the platform. depending on the videos i watch, along with some judicious approval or disapproval via the thumbs up/down buttons presented and skipping boring or irrelevant ads and vice-versa, i now am presented with much more appropriate and interesting or informative adverts for products and services i wouldn't have known existed and so on.

there's a lot to be said for targeted advertising, whether through specific platforms or media (such as only advertising in byte magazine and therefore reaching a specific audience of tech-literates) or via big data style ad platforms such as adsense on youtube.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com