Byte magazine was an influential
microcomputer magazine in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, because of its wide-ranging editorial coverage. Whereas many magazines from the mid-1980s had been dedicated to the
MS-DOS (PC) platform or the
Mac, mostly from a business user's perspective,
Byte covered technical developments in the entire field of "small computers and software", and sometimes included in-depth features on other computing fields as well, such as
supercomputers and high-reliability computing.
Byte started in 1975, shortly after the first personal computers appeared as kits advertised in the back of electronics magazines. Byte was published monthly, with a yearly subscription price of $10.
How Byte started
In 1975
Wayne Green was the Editor/Publisher of
73 (an
amateur radio magazine) and his ex-wife,
Virginia Londner Green, was the Business Manager of 73 Inc. In the August 1975 issue of 73 magazine Wayne's editorial column started with this item.
"The response to computer-type articles in 73 has been so enthusiastic that we here in Peterborough got carried away. On May 25th we made a deal with the publisher of a small (400 circulation) computer hobby magazine to take over as editor of a new publication which would start in August ... BYTE."
Byte's first editor was Carl Helmers and in the first anniversary issue he wrote:
"BYTE began with its first issue dated September 1975. That first issue was assembled from scratch in seven weeks of hectic activity starting May 25 1975."
The new magazine, Byte, was published by a new company, Green Publishing, which was 100% owned by Virginia, who kept the surname name "Green" after her divorce ten years earlier because it was her daughter's name. Because Virginia started Green Publishing and Byte Magazine with limited capital, which she borrowed within her family, much of the work of the early issues was sub-contracted to various individuals and companies, mostly in the Monadnock Region of New Hampshire. 73 Magazine, which had excess staff capacity, did much of the "paste-up" of the magazine pages for the first 4 issues under sub-contract from Virginia. In 3 of those first 4 issues, without permission or authority, Wayne Green inserted his name and the title of Publisher just before the final page "boards" were sent to the printer. After the third occurrence, Virginia removed all work in progress from the 73 premises and used other sub-contractors and her own growing Byte staff.
A 1985 Folio magazine article that suggested that "One day in November 1975 Wayne came to work and found that the Byte magazine staff had moved out and taken the January issue with them." This Folio article quoting Green was the genesis of libel actions by Virginia against both Folio and Green in the New Hampshire Superior Court in Manchester. Folio had never attempted to corroborate Wayne Green's statements with Virginia, Carl Helmers, or the law firm that organized Virginia's publishing company to publish, inter alia, Byte Magazine. Both Folio and Green settled before trial with large payments to Virginia.
The January 1976 issue has Virginia Green listed as Publisher.
Virginia Green Williamson's second husband, attorney Gordon Williamson, wrote a book contending that Wayne Green's role in founding Byte was minimal and that litigation between the parties was settled against Wayne Green's interests. See "See Wayne Run. Run, Wayne, Run." (Barkley, 1988).
The February 1976 issue of Byte has a short story about the move. "After a start which reads like a romantic light opera with an episode or two reminiscent of the Keystone Cops, BYTE magazine finally has moved into separate offices of its own."
In the autumn of 1976 Wayne Green announced the planned launch of a computer magazine called Kilobyte. Byte quickly trademarked KILOBYTE as a cartoon series in Byte magazine as the first of a planned family of trademarks based upon the original "Byte" registered trademark. A trademark infringement lawsuit in US Federal Court in Concord, New Hampshire by Byte against Green and Kilobyte was settled with Green changing the name of his proposed magazine before the first issue was produced. The new magazine was called Kilobaud. Byte magazine's policy was not to mention competitors in its pages. This applied to Green as well as to a rapidly growing cadre of competitors. Naturally, there was competition and animosity between Byte Publications and 73 Inc. since both remained in the small town of Peterborough, New Hampshire.
The early years
Byte 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. 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. Advertisements from
Godbout,
MITS,
Processor Technology,
SCELBI, and
Sphere appear, among others.
Early articles in Byte were do-it-yourself electronic or software projects to improve small computers. 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). 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. Byte ran Microsoft's first advertisement, as "Micro-Soft", to sell a BASIC interpreter for 8080-based computers.
Growth and change
In spring of 1979, owner/publisher Virginia Williamson sold the magazine to
McGraw-Hill. She remained publisher through 1983 (a total of about 8 years from inception) and subsequently became a vice president of McGraw-Hill Publications Company. Shortly after the IBM PC was introduced, in 1981, the magazine changed editorial policies. It gradually deemphasized the do-it-yourself electronics and software articles, and began running product reviews, the first computer magazine to do so. It continued its wide-ranging coverage of hardware and software, but now it reported "what it does" and "how it works", not "how-to-do-it." The editorial focus remained on any computer system or software that might be within a typical individual's finances and interest (centered on
home and
personal computers).
From 1975 through 1986, Byte covers usually featured the artwork of Robert Tinney. These covers made Byte visually unique. In 1987, the replacement of Tinney's paintings with product photographs (together with the discontinuation of Steve Ciarcia's "Circuit Cellar" column) marked the refocusing of the magazine from technical people to management.
Around 1985, Byte started its own online service called BIX (Byte Information eXchange) which was a text only BBS style site running on the CoSy conferencing software. McGraw-Hill also used the same software internally. Access was via local dial-in or for additional hourly charges, the Tymnet X.25 network. Monthly rates were $13/month for the account and $1/hour for X.25 access. Unlike Compuserve, access at higher speeds was not surcharged. Many of the Byte staff were active on the service. Later, gateways permitted email communication outside the system.
Byte continued to grow. By 1990, it was a monthly about an inch in thickness, a readership of technical professionals, and a subscription price of $56/year (quite pricey). It was the "must-read" magazine of the popular computer magazines. Around 1993, Byte began to develop a web presence. It acquired domain name byte.com and began to have discussions and post selected editorial content.
Likewise, it has developed a number of national sister editions; in Japan, in Brazil, in Germany, and the latest Byte edition in Arabic, published in Jordan.
The controversial end of Byte
In 1998, still growing,
Byte was losing money. Some change was necessary to turn around the magazine's fortunes. Although circulation and readership remained strong, advertising revenues had been declining, so McGraw-Hill sold the magazine to
CMP Media, a successful publisher of specialized computer magazines. CMP ceased publication with the July 1998 issue, laid off all the staff and shut down
Byte's rather large product-testing lab. Subscribers were offered a choice of two of CMP's other magazines, notably CMP's flagship publication about Windows PCs.
Publication of Byte in Germany and Japan continued uninterrupted. The Turkish edition resumed publication after a few years of interruption. The Arabic edition also ended abruptly.
Many of Byte's columnists migrated their writing to personal web sites. The most popular of these was probably science fiction author Jerry Pournelle's weblog "The View From Chaos Manor" derived from a long-standing column in Byte, describing computers from a power user's point of view. After the closure of Byte, Jerry Pournelle's column continued to be published in the Turkish editions of PC World which was soon renamed as PC LIFE in Turkey.
In 1999, CMP revived Byte as a web-only publication. In 2002, the site became subscription-supported. The wide-ranging editorial policy continued until April 2007, when the last article was posted. The site still features numerous articles on open-source projects, including a column on Linux by Moshe Bar. Jerry Pournelle was retained to continue writing "The View From Chaos Manor", which from December 2003 again appears in print in English, in the programming magazine Dr. Dobb's Journal.
References
Books
Ranade, Jay; Nash, Alan (1993). The Best of Byte. McGraw-Hill Companies. 641 pp. ISBN 0-07-051344-9.
See also
MC die microcomputer-zeitschrift (magazine) A German magazine similar to Byte.
External links
BYTE.com official site
BYTE Turkey (Only active monthly printed BYTE magazine) (subscription-supported)
Tom's Unofficial BYTE FAQ:The Death of BYTE Magazine – By former Byte journalist Tom R. Halfhill, on his personal website
HomeLib On-line index for early issues of Byte
Quickerwit.com On-line reviews index to Byte from 1994 to 1998
VC&G; Interview: Robert Tinney, BYTE Cover Artist and Microcomputer Illustration Pioneer
Category:Defunct American computer magazines
Category:Monthly magazines
Category:Publications established in 1975
Category:Publications disestablished in 1998
