Byte Magazine Smalltalk-80 Issue | Hacker News Reader

Byte Magazine Smalltalk-80 Issue

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79 pointst1m32 comments

Byte Magazine was awesome. So much more technical and in-depth than what computer magazines offer today. One of the most interesting issues I ever read was an early 1990's issue that I found several years later (but before we had internet outside of AOL's walled garden). It had two major stories: new operating systems and new processors. It covered OS/2, how the new NT micro-kernel could host different personalities like Windows and POSIX, OSF/Mach and this object-oriented OS called Taligent that never took off. It also covered Alpha and PowerPC and talked about how RISC would take over from x86.

Ironically, it all came to pass in a slightly different way than they imagined. Now, everyone is running a Mach-based UNIX on RISC hardware, except instead of a workstation it's your iPhone.

For me, byte stopped being as interesting the late 80s, after Robert Tinney stopped doing their cover artwork and their stories almost always lead with "HOT NEW 386 FROM COMPAQ". There were a few gems after that, but those Robert Tinney covers were wonderful (and I've since bought a few prints from him.)

Well I was a small child in the late 1980's, so I can't say I'm familiar with that era. In retrospect, though, I do feel like I've missed out on the golden age of computing, at least when it comes to the stuff that interests me (CPUs, operating systems, programming languages).

I'm so torn. I've got BYTEs from 1976 through the early 80s and I love flipping through them - there's just nothing like having a paper copy to find things you didn't even know you were looking for. But the space they take up is getting too valuable... And now archive.org has all those magazines digitized... Its hard to prioritize the classic books and magazines vs other non-essential life detritus.

I'd NEVER get rid of my old Bytes, Creative Computing and Dr Dobbs. That's MY youth. Spending time at The Computer Store in Bryn Mawr, PA playing with their Processor Technology SOL-20 and wishing I could afford one.

I still play with a SOL-20 emulator sometimes.

I hear you, I have a bunch of old Transactor magazines from the '80s (hardcore Commodore programming magazine) that I'd like to give to a deserving home.

On the non-programming front, I have a ton of old issues of Climbing magazine from the '90s that are completely awesome but I have no one to give them to.

I guess I could place a "giving away for free" ad on Craigslist but it would be cool to have a more dedicated site for this kind of thing.

At Cognopolis there is the Holoteca, a collection of collections. They have many tecas with lots of stuff, from one of the largest comics collections to bugs and shells and thousands of dictionaries (and many other stuff)

I can connect you with them

Have a look http://tedxavcataratas.com/2013/12/26/cognopolis-consciousne...

I had the entire run of, ahem, Commodore RUN Magazine, and had a great time flipping through them as you describe. But when I moved, I didn't consider them worth moving and put them in the recycle bin. At nearly 20 years old, they were starting to get the yellowing and musty smell like ancient Playboys have. Later I realized that they might have fetched a few dollars on eBay, but the biggest regret was trying to find a reference for something (specifically, this Neuromancer video game ad from 1989 [0]) that I knew was in them. Then I found that someone had scanned them all put them on bittorrent, including the disk images from the Special Issues.

So I miss the nostalgia of flipping through the pages, but it's truly the content that has value.

[0] http://www.flickr.com/photos/26403976@N03/5742024292

I only kept copies of the ones that I had articles in, the rest went to other collectors with more space than I had. Something I found surprising was all the memories that old digitized copies of Radio Shack catalogs had for me. There isn't anything quite like the Radio Shack of the 80's any more.

I know what you mean. I wound up getting rid of my collection of Byte, Dr. Dobbs, Popular Electronics, etc. years ago. I can still remember when a new issue arrived, how I would carefully read every single word, including the ads.

Care to send me one? ;) We just threw out boxes full of old computer magazines when my parents moved. I just kept one as a memento (so did my dad). That seemed like a sensible trade-off.

Page 53 has an ad from Paul Lutus (lutusp @ HN occasionally) for TransForth: https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1981-08/1981_08_BYT...

I found this amusing "complaint" to Byte in this same issue (https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1981-08/1981_08_BYT...):

  April's Foolers

  The hasty printing of data concerning 
  our Black-Hole Diode is not only an inva- 
  sion of our corporate security, but is not 
  in the national interest. (See the April 
  1981 BYTE, page 363.)

[https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1981-04/1981_04_BYT...]

  Our device, which is covered by US 
  patents and is classified by the National 
  Security Council as "Top Secret," should 
  not be pandered about in a general-circu- 
  lation magazine for all to see, especially 
  when those not friendly to our nation may 
  learn details of this device. 

  Furthermore, how BYTE learned of the 
  existence of our device is unknown to us, 
  but be advised that stricter security has 
  been imposed to forestall any further 
  lapses. 

  Be also advised that the company BYTE 
  lists as being responsible for creating the 
  Black-Hole Device, Spatial Regression 
  Ltd, will shortly receive summons from 
  our legal department. 

  Any repetition or further disregard for 
  national security regarding this device or 
  its uses in particle-beam research will 
  bring about swift and final action. 

  J.W. Kelty
  Chief Executive Officer 
  Code-7 Electronics 
  POB 1505 
  Modesto CA 95353

And Byte's response:

  Each year, the BYTE staff enjoys slip- 
  ping a few joke items into the April issue 
  for our readers to find; some are subtle, 
  some are outrageous. Response to this 
  year's foolishness was greater than in any 
  year past. In case you missed it, look for

  "Lost Dutchman's Bug" (photo), 
  page 302 
  "Black-Hole Diode" (new product), 
  page 363 
  "Noise-Emitting Diode" (new product), 
  page 364 
  "Slightly Used Cray-1" (unclassified ad),
  page 414 

  So you see, there's no need for "swift 
  and final action" (gulp!) — we were just 
  kidding! By the way, where should we 
  return the sample device that was in- 
  cluded with your letter? . . . CPF

"noise-emitting diode" is one of those jokes that is so simple and so brilliant you wish you'd thought of it first

? What's the joke in this? Besides diodes not emitting noise, that is.

it's a play on "light-emitting diode", retaining the same superficial form but generating an absurd image in the process. in the context of coming up with titles for an april fool article, it's brilliant.

Looks like a counter april fools that BYTE fell for.

Nice complement to the Self release thread here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7047953

Agreed. Reading the Self thread kind of got the nostalgia going for the Smalltalk. I was quite surprised to see how thorough archive.org has become.

I went through a rather large Smalltalk phase in the first half of the nineties, and was kindly lent a copy of the 1981 magazine by a fellow hacker (and archivist!) for a few months before reluctantly returning it sometime in 1991. I loved how the journos went through great lengths describing what "cut/copy/paste" was. It's almost travel writing.

For me, that's not the Smalltalk-80 issue, but the Z8-BASIC issue. My mom was studying computer science, and subscribed to Byte. I was interested in math, electronics, and programming at the time. I was in high school and had taken a course in BASIC. Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar was transformative for me.

I remember this issue vividly. I was 14. :)

I couldn't grok what smalltalk was. :(

I was 20. I faired no better.

Page 196:

An add for "The Last One", a system that claims to write your programs for you in a bug-free fashion by asking you questions in plain English. "Coming soon..."

I wonder at the context behind this. The idea that computers could even remotely be capable of this seems crazy now, let alone in the '80s. But maybe it wasn't as high level as I'm thinking....

I read this, on paper, in 1981.

I was lost, but at least understood that I was trying to read something important. Something well beyond Fortran, Basic and Pascal.

Odd trivia: in the mid-80's I worked as a programmer writing educational software for Apple IIs. While digging through the college library for old magazines (they had a mostly complete run of BYTE) I came across the Cream font (page 106) and decided to use it on one of our programs.

So, that font was displayed on Apple II's all over Brazil.

Love to read it but I can't because it's stuck in some gimmick. Why is Archive.org doing this?

On the left there should be a box 'view this book' with a number of download options.

The left side gives access to the raw PDF as well as all other supported formats (epub, etc.)

Is the "Microsoft" in the ad on p 111 the Microsoft? I don't recognize that logo. The address on the ad is Bellevue, WA.

They've changed logos a number of times... and moved from Bellevue to Redmond in ~1985 (and from Albuquerque to Bellevue in 1979). - recollected from 'Gates', Stephen Manes.