"Launching" a software product consisted of taking out an ad in the back pages of Byte.
Lotus 1-2-3 was considered revolutionary in marketing circles because they spend $1M on their launch.
Vintage Byte Magazine Library
41–50 of 96 posts
Re: Vintage Byte Magazine Library
#42Looking at one of these now I remember how magazines made technology very exciting (I don't think it was just because I was younger). I think a lot of it was down to the visuals. You just won't get illustrations like that on someone's blog. The illustrations made the technology seem more real and certainly more glamorous.
I don't think it was just because we were younger. I also don't think it was just because of the visuals (though those helped). I think a lot of it was because things were moving so fast. The 386 was an astonishing improvement over the 286. But now, the next generation Intel chip is... kind of nice, I guess? But it's not all that exciting. Windows 95 was a massive improvement over Windows 3.0. Windows 11 doesn't make…
Agree. I started with personal computing in 1983 and what was so exciting about that time, I think, was that each new generation of hardware could do something incredibly cool the prior generation fundamentally could not. I remember feeling a nearly constant level of excitement about tech, always so stoked to see what was coming next and what incredible new capability it would bring to the table.
And Moore's Law didn't hurt either, those clock rate increases!
Today's tech is amazing, but the progress is mostly incremental and that doesn't tend to get the blood pumping.
Re: Vintage Byte Magazine Library
#43I grew up in tech-hostile environment but somehow i got to buy a few volumes of byte in the 90s. I remember reading Jon Udell's column and for some reason liking his expose of web technologies. It is so weird , i even remember certain sentences. It's fair to say that I owe him my web 'career'
Re: Vintage Byte Magazine Library
#44Many 404 errors for the PDF links. Just FYI.
Re: Vintage Byte Magazine Library
#45Hey guys, Peter here from vintageapple.org. My server is experiencing a bit of a hug of death from this. Please be kind and don't try to download everything all at once. I've had to apply a rate limit to that site for now to make sure the applications I'm hosting continue to work.
Re: Vintage Byte Magazine Library
#46Download old BYTE magazines from here: https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Byte_Magazine.htm
Or higher quality scans here: https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine
Or Popular Electronics: https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Popular-Electronics-Gui...
Creative Computing: https://archive.org/details/creativecomputing
Re: Vintage Byte Magazine Library
#47People complain about ads , but browse any volume and count the number of ads (may be easier to count the number of non-ads). And you had to pay for that stuff.
The ads were really valuable. Back in the day they were one of the main ways of learning what was available.
Re: Vintage Byte Magazine Library
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the HDD vs floppies comparison is more sensibly analogized to SSD vs HDD. That was a massive change. I think the Apple Silicon vs Intel upgrade is pretty exciting (although a lot of that feels like promise of what might be coming in the M2 and beyond), but yes, it's definitely a different world than it was in the 90s which was probably the period of most rapid technical advancement in personal computing.
> SSD vs HDD. That was a massive change. On a tech level, sure. But not something the majority of users have even noticed. (Less noise, maybe.) > Apple Silicon vs Intel upgrade I've had a hard time explaining to someone the meaning of this (and why they should care). So, no, there is no comparison to the level of innovation and the general excitement around the computer tech they saw back in the 80s.
The speed difference is really quite dramatic. When I replaced the boot hard drive on my Mac Mini with a SSD after it died, it was an immediately obvious increase in performance.
Re: Vintage Byte Magazine Library
#49People complain about ads , but browse any volume and count the number of ads (may be easier to count the number of non-ads). And you had to pay for that stuff.
But those ads are static. They have no animated gifs or videos, having to rely on typography and still images to catch your attention. As a result, they are much less intrusive. More importantly, they couldn’t track you, nor did their selection rely on any knowlege of you (besides the fact that you were reading byte magazine.)
I agree with you, except some of the ads were loose inserts that fell out when you shook the magazine, which was almost as annoying as animated gifs/videos.
Re: Vintage Byte Magazine Library
#50Download old BYTE magazines from here: https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Byte_Magazine.htm Or higher quality scans here: https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine Or Popular Electronics: https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Popular-Electronics-Gui... Creative Computing: https://archive.org/details/creativecomputing
Yes, American Radio History is one of my favorite sites (to hoard from).
Lots more than just Byte and Popular Electronics.