Cover of the October 1980 issue of Byte
Byte was a bit more technical than most mainstream computer magazines of the time. It really was more for hobbyists than just users. In 1980, the IBM PC still had not bee introduced yet. The closest thing to a standard were machines with an 8080/Z80 CPU, S-100 bus and CP/M but there were tons of proprietary systems. Home users would mostly have been using an Atari, Apple, Commodore, or Radio Shack machine. The October 1980 issue of Byte includes:
Foreground<
- An 8088 Processor For The S-100 Bus, Part 2 - The second part of a design for an 8088 based S-100 processor board.
- Sorting With Binary Trees - A description of the binary tree sorting algorithm.
- FLOPTRAN-IV: A Tiny Compiler - This is basically a floating point translator for Commodore PET BASIC
- Symbolic Math Using BASIC - A simple BASIC program that expands polynomials.
- The 6502 Gets Microprogrammable Instructions - A simple hardware design to add 64 user defined instructions to the 6502 CPU.
- Vector Graphics For Raster Displays - An efficient method for plotting vectors on a raster display.
Background
- Make Liquid-Crystal Displays Work For You - A technical description of LCDs and how to interface with and control them.
- An Information-Retrieval System - Designing a more user friendly information retrieval system.
- Add Macro Expansion To Your Microcomputer, Part 1 - The first part of this series on macro assemblers details the process of defining and using macro instructions.
- Machine Problem Solving - Part 2 of this series focuses on solving cryptarithemetic problems.
- The Forth Standards Team - A look at FORTH standards, past and present.
Table of Contents from the October 1980 issue of Byte
Nucleus
- Editorial - The results of a reader survey that provides info on the types of people that read Byte.
- Letters - Letters from readers about software piracy, transferring files from a mainframe to a CP/M machine, TRS-80 performance, and more.
- Product Review - A review of the Synertek Systems KTM-2 Terminal-on-Board. This was basically a keyboard and terminal hardware that, with a display, made a complete terminal.
- Desk Top Wonders - Darth Vader's Force Battle, a game for the TI-59 calculator.
- Education Forum - A Multiple-Machine Loader for Classroom Computers - This is an interface for loading programs on multiple computers from a single source. This great reduces the coast of classroom systems since a separate disk drive would not be needed for each machine.
- Product Description - A look at the TRS-80 Model III (I used these in high school though they were already outdated then) and the TRS-80 Pocket Computer.
- Technical Forum - Adding upper-and-lowercase capability to the TRS-80.
- BYTELINES - IEEE floating point standard released; Motorola created computer controlled house; toy robots getting smarter; Nevada approves computer based slot machines; Intel working on 32-bit computer; IBM introduces Displaywriter word processing system; Commodore introduces $199 computer (The VIC-20); and more.
- Book Reviews - Reviews of Microprocessors and Digital Systems, Z80 Microprocessor Programming and Interfacing, and more.
- Programming Quickies - Exchanging the contents of two memory locations and a Towers of Hanoi implementation in BASIC09.
- Ask Byte - Questions answered about the high price of terminals, TRS-80 keyboards, TRS-80 memory upgrades, expanding the TRS-80, using a computer at a radio station, and more.
- What's New? - A brief look at new products including the TC-8 high-speed cassette for the TRS-80, Microplot 44 thermal printer, The System 10 from GNAT, dot matrix printer from TEI, the Wavetek Model 3010 Signal Generator, and more.
Back cover of the October 1980 issue of Byte
...and lots more!
Check out some of my other recent posts:
Vintage Photos - Lot 4 (025-028)
https://ecency.com/photography/@darth-azrael/vintage-photos-lot-4-025
Byte (September 1987)
https://ecency.com/retrocomputing/@darth-azrael/byte-september-1987
Vintage Photos - Lot 4 (021-024)
https://ecency.com/photography/@darth-azrael/vintage-photos-lot-4-021
The One (January 1993)
https://ecency.com/retrogaming/@darth-azrael/the-one-january-1993
Vintage Photos - Lot 4 (017-020)
https://ecency.com/photography/@darth-azrael/vintage-photos-lot-4-017
Zephyr (DOS, 1994)
https://ecency.com/hive-140217/@darth-azrael/zephyr-dos-1994
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Books I am reading or have recently read:
The Altar Path by Joseph Lisiewski.
Red Star Falling by Steve Berry.
A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H.G. Parry
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Byte was my favorite computer magazine. I read it cover to cover for several years, but grew tired of it when it started becoming redundant and commercialized.
!WINE
I think it just moved with the times. It became more and more PC oriented as the market did. In its early days, most computer users were hobbyists. Later on, for most people, computers were just another tool or entertainment device. There aren't many computer hobbyist magazines anymore. Maybe some Linux or Raspberry Pi or retrocomputing mags.