It gradually de-emphasized the do-it-yourself electronics and software articles, and began running product reviews, the first computer magazine to do so. Shortly after the IBM PC was introduced, in 1981, the magazine changed editorial policies. She remained publisher until 1983, about 8 years after founding the magazine, and subsequently became a vice president of McGraw-Hill Publications Company. In spring of 1979, owner/publisher Virginia Williamson sold the magazine to McGraw-Hill. Byte ran Microsoft's first advertisement, as 'Micro-Soft', to sell a BASIC interpreter for 8080-based computers. Significant articles in this period included the 'Kansas City' standard for data storage on audio tape, insertion of disk drives into S-100 computers, publication of source code for various computer languages (Tiny C, BASIC, assemblers), and breathless coverage of the first microcomputer operating system, CP/M. A continuing feature was Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar, a column in which electronic engineer Steve Ciarcia described small projects to modify or attach to a computer (later spun off to become the magazine Circuit Cellar, focusing on embedded computer applications). Advertisements from Godbout, MITS, Processor Technology, SCELBI, and Sphere appear, among others.Įarly articles in Byte were do-it-yourself electronic or software projects to improve small computers.

Articles in the first issue (September, 1975) included Which Microprocessor For You? by Hal Chamberlin, Write Your Own Assembler by Dan Fylstra and Serial Interface by Don Lancaster.

Byte was published monthly, with an initial yearly subscription price of $10.īyte was able to attract advertising and articles from many well-knowns, soon-to-be-well-knowns, and ultimately-to-be-forgottens in the growing microcomputer hobby. Coverage was in-depth with much technical detail, rather than user-oriented.īyte started in 1975, shortly after the first personal computers appeared as kits advertised in the back of electronics magazines. Whereas many magazines from the mid-1980s had been dedicated to the MS-DOS (PC) platform or the Mac, mostly from a business or home user's perspective, Byte covered developments in the entire field of 'small computers and software', and sometimes other computing fields such as supercomputers and high-reliability computing.

Byte magazine was a microcomputer magazine, influential in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s because of its wide-ranging editorial coverage.

Edn 1980-1985 eprom programmer