
Omikron TRS-80 Boards, NEWDOS+ and Sundry Other Matters (1980) - helloworld
https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1980-07/1980_07_BYTE_05-07_Computers_and_Education#page/n199/mode/1up
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oldcynic
Scroll around for some highlights.

What did USR used to sell as well as modems? 300 baud modems mind you, not
fancy v.Everything Couriers yet.

Ad for full height floppy drives and 14" hard drives.

Apple III review. X10 home automation project with circuit diagrams. Now, if
only X10 had been followed up with a standard into the TCP/IP years... ;)

BASIC Listings at the back. With explanations of the listings.

I miss Byte, oh and Personal Computer World (UK), Amiga Transactor and Dr
Dobbs. ...and the terrible ads!

Oh well, feeling old with my morning coffee.

~~~
pjmlp
C being just an occasional reference, with the actual highlights being
Assembly, BASIC, FORTH, Fortran and Lisp.

~~~
rbanffy
And C was considered a high-level programming language...

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robin_reala
I miss Byte. I’m a second-gen programmer and in the late 80s and 90s my dad
had a subscription to Byte and a few UK computing trade papers. I’d read it
cover to cover even if I didn’t really understand most of the contents, but
Jerry’s column always stood out against the rest. He seemed to be a natural
communicator.

~~~
protomyth
Byte was the magazine that had things I dreamed about and pointers to learn
about new things. I started reading it in the 80's and lost track sometime in
the 90's. It with Antic, Dr. Dobbs Journal, and Creative Computing defined
what was computing to me in my jr high and high school years. I don't really
think any website has given me the same feelings as those magazines.

It is interesting to compare Byte's 1985 Computer Conferencing issues with
what we have now: [https://archive.org/details/byte-
magazine-1985-12](https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1985-12)

[edit: page 181 has an ad that is a real piece of history]

~~~
le-mark
Are you referring to Swyft Card or Raskin? How are either significant, for the
uninformed?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7544389](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7544389)

~~~
protomyth
I just thought it was cool to see Raskin and Woz in the same ad post-
Macintosh.

~~~
le-mark
Ah ok, yes that's cool now that you've highlighted the context.

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quickthrower2
Oh wow! I had to cringe at the "Why Pay $4000 For A Complete Accounting
System" ad. That's probably the worst copy I have seen.

First it rambles on about a very boring history of this company took over that
company that licensed this thing that ...

Then just incase you haven't fallen asleep and you still want to buy, they put
you off by telling you you'll get bad support and a buggy product.

Then finally past that hurdle, and if anyone is left with their wallet open,
thinking of spending their hard earned $100, it inflates the price to $450
because there is some technical dependency on some runtime thingy.

I wonder; Did anyone buy?

~~~
abecedarius
Followed by a full-page ad for a Forth interpreter! Those were the days. I
suspect many companies like this could make money for lack of competition, but
I dunno, I was 10 years old then.

~~~
quickthrower2
Yeah now there are so many free programming languages, you have to pay me
(with $ or an awesome language) to use your interpreter!

~~~
rbanffy
It's interesting how free software drove huge advancements. In the early 386
days few people used Unix because a seat license would cost more than the
computer.

At first I thought we were attaining a critical mass, when enough free
software was available for us to build even more, better free software but now
I realize it's more like an exponential curve I can't quite see where it ends.

And if feels great.

~~~
pjmlp
The side effect of it is that the majority of RAD like tools are only
available in enterprise space, because only those companies are willing to pay
for developer tools.

Hence why companies like Qt or JetBrains are selective what they allow with
their free versions.

Then we get Electron apps, because many devs don't feel like paying for such
tools.

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TheOtherHobbes
The amazing thing about Byte was the amount of cash it generated in ad sales.
Ad spaces cost hundreds or thousands of dollars depending on size, and the
magazine was packed full of them. In the 80s it was a real cash cow,
generating millions a year after printing and distribution costs. Ad revenue
only declined when the Internet began to take over in the 90s.

The other amazing thing is how expensive computers were in real terms. You can
add a zero to early 1980s prices to get a rough RPI equivalent. Business
systems advertised for >$10k on paper cost serious money - and usually offered
an 8-bit CPU running at a few MHz, and 64K of RAM for those willing to stretch
their budget.

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ChristianGeek
Wow, memories. A TRS-80 was my first computer at age 16 and I still remember
upgrading from 4K (K!) to 16k and wondering what I would ever do with all that
memory!

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wiz21c
(nitpicking!) I love Jerry Pournelle but he made a little mistake in his text,
it's not "chansons du geste" but "chansons d_e_ geste".

[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanson_de_geste](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanson_de_geste)

~~~
mixmastamyk
He didn't have WP to double-check, cut him some slack. ;) Looking up things in
those days often meant a drive to the library.

