

Byte: The Smalltalk Issue (1981) [pdf] - shawndumas
https://ia601506.us.archive.org/12/items/byte-magazine-1981-08/1981_08_BYTE_06-08_Smalltalk.pdf

======
teddyh
In the “Letters” section, page 32, Stephen Hain of the MIT Logo laboratory
writes about how his implementation of the Logo programming language for the
Apple computer which he was writing at MIT, with the initial understanding
that it would be placed in the public domain, has been shelved indefinitely by
MIT, withheld from the public. Why? Because Texas Instruments sells a version
of Logo which was not as good, (for its TI-99/4 computer), and Texas
Instruments essentially influenced MIT to scrap the program instead of
releasing it in any form.

It is 1981; it will be a few years still before Richard Stallman quits his job
at MIT and starts the GNU project. I wonder if he knew about this.

------
austinz
The visual language grammar starting on page 40 is fascinating.

~~~
shawndumas
[https://www.google.com/search?q=railroad+diagram&ie=UTF-8&oe...](https://www.google.com/search?q=railroad+diagram&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari)

~~~
austinz
I had no idea. Thanks for the link!

~~~
shawndumas
Not a problem at all.

I first came across them in The Good Parts:
[http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/javascript/excerpts/javascri...](http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/javascript/excerpts/javascript-
good-parts/syntax-diagrams.html)

~~~
riffraff
they are also up front in json.org

[http://www.json.org/](http://www.json.org/)

------
pjmlp
It was a great experience diving into Smalltalk via VisualWorks in the
mid-90's at the university.

Then the following year, Java was announced to the world...

------
davelnewton
This is one of the few paper issues of Byte I've saved for all these years,
actually.

That magazine, along with 80 Micro, got me through grade school.

------
zak_mc_kracken
The amount of advertising puts even Wired to shame. Holy cow.

~~~
shawndumas
but it is more than 400 pages though

~~~
davelnewton
And back then it was devoured, greedily, by essentially anybody who was
interested in computing. We had BBSs but no internet; information
dissemination was radically different than today.

Hobbyist computer magazines in those days were what we had, except for user
groups.

~~~
pjmlp
Who could afford BBSs?

In Portugal it meant long distance calls to Lisbon or Porto, into systems that
were time limited and with up to 10 connections.

