Byte (December 1984)
In 1984, Byte covered personal computers and other small systems that were availabe at the time. Some issues of Byte could almost compete with the phone book sized Computer Shopper that came along later. The December 1984 issue weighs in at 672 pages and includes:
Features
The Tandy 1000 - The Tandy 1000 was released after the Tandy 2000. It was meant to be a lower cost IBM PC clone. Something that would compete more with the PCjr. Minimum configuration included a 4.77 MHz 8088 CPU, 128KB RAM, a single 360K 5.25" disk drive and a monochrome monitor for $1358.95 or $1199 without monitor. Additional options included a second floppy drive for $299.95, an internal 300bps modem for $179.95, an RS-232C interface for $99.95, a 128K memory expansion board, and a color monitor for $549.95.
Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar: Build The Power I/O System - Instructions for building the hardware needed to use a computer to control power to items in your house.
C-Language Development Tools - A brief look at some recent new C Language tools including the Safe C Compiler/Profiler, Instant-C, and C Source Debugger.
Table of Contents from the December 1984 issue of Byte
Theme: Communications
The Evolution of a Standard Ethernet - Networking today is a lot easier than it used to be. The first Ethernet hardware was developed by Xerox in the late 1970s. However, in those early days and for a long time, Ethernet made use of coaxial cable and transceivers and repeaters. It was much harder to setup, much more expensive, and much slower than today.
Local-Area Networks for the IBM PC - There were many options for local area networking for the IBM PC. However, they were for the most part not compatible with each other and tended to be fairly expensive. The features offered by 40 different vendors are summarized here with speeds from 375Kbps to 10Mbps, using twisted-pair, coax or fiber, and using a variety of protocols including Arcnet, Ethernet, CSMA, token passing, and various proprietary schemes.
High-Speed Dial-Up Modems - The vast majority of consumer modems in 1984 were either 300bps or 1200bps. 2400, 4800, and 9600bps modems existed but were very expensive. A 4800bps modem would set you back $2500, 2400bps $800-$1400, 1200bps $450-$700 and a $300bps modem a much more affordable $60-$350.
Writing Communications in BASIC - Using BASIC to implement a terminal emulator and file transfer capabilities.
Reviews
The Tandy Model 2000 - The Tandy 2000 was released before the Tandy 1000 and is the higher end machine. However, it sacrificed some PC compatibility for performance. Some regular DOS programs would work fine while others did not. Tandy also released special versions of some commercial software enhanced for the Tandy 2000. The Tandy 2000 featured an 80186 CPU @ 8MHz, 128KB of RAM (expandable to 768KB), dual 5.25" floppy disk drives, and a monochrome monitor for $3000. A version with one floppy drive and a 10MB hard drive cost $4500.
The Zenith Z-150 PC - The specs of this IBM clone very closely match the original. It includes an 8088 CPU @ 4.77MHz, two 360K 5.25" disk drives, and 320KB of RAM. The most interesting things about it is that it uses a backplane instead of a motherboard and it is available in kit format. A long time ago (probably circa 1995), I had a very similar machine. I think it was a slightly newer version but the case looked identical.
TK!Solver - An application for scientists and engineers for solving general mathematical expressions.
Table of Contents from the December 1984 issue of Byte (continued)
Kernel
Computing at Chaos Manner: Home Again - Adventure in repairing a Zorro Z-100, some info on laser printers, BASIC compatibility on the Zenith Z-150, shopping for a clock/calendar board, The TI Professional computer, and more.
Byte West Coast: Happenings - IBM acquires Rolm Corp., IBM to offer local-area network configurations for its personal computers, Concurrent PC-DOS 3.2 released by Digital Research, and more.
Byte U.K.: Prolog on Microcomputers - An overview of Micro-PROLOG for DOS and CP/M.
Byte Japan: Hand-Held Computers and MSX Standards - A brief look at new handheld computers in Japan including the Epson HC-88/-80 and the Ampere Big.APL. Plus, an overview of the MSX standard and a brief look at several machines including the Canon V-10 and V-20, Victor AV, Toshiba HX-10S and HX-10D, Pioneer PALCOM PX-7, Sony "Hit Bit" HD-55 and HD-75, Hitachi HI, Yamaha Y1S503, Fujitsu FM-X, Mitsubishi ML-F120, and Matsushita CF-2000 and CF-3000.
Circuit Cellar Feedback - Readers chime in about the new 65816 chip, digitizing stamps, MPX-16 keyboard interface, and more.
Editorial: Looking Back: 1984 - Highlights of 1984 include the introduction of the IBM PCjr, IBM PC AT, Hewlett Packard 150, Tandy 2000, Tandy 1000, Apple IIc, AT&T PC, Compaq Deskpro, Corona Mega PC, NEC APC III, and lots more.
The IBM PC was introduced around the same time this issue of Byte was on the stands. If you had a personal computer at the time, it was most likely an Atari, Apple II, Commodore, TRS-80 or something built from a kit. Byte also covered what were called "small systems". I guess you could think of those as the rough equivalent of workstations for a business environment. The September 1981 issue of Byte includes:
Features
A Look at NCC '81 - The 1981 National Computer Conference held in Chicago May 4th-May 7th. Some of the many things seen there include the BMC IF-800 microcomputer, LEX-21 portable terminal, the Corvus Omninet, BASF's slimline 5.25-inch flopy-disk drives, The TRS-80 Color Computer, The Xerox Star, the Sony Typecorder, a half-width 8-inch floppy drive from Tandon and much more.
Build an Unlimited-Vocabulary Speech Synthesizer - A guide for building your own speech synthesizer.
The Xerox Alto Computer - Xerox designed the Alto as a development tool for Xerox. However, they also donated 50 machines to various educational institutions for research. It consists of a vertically oriented graphics display, a mouse which was a Xerox innovation, two 3MB hard drives, and a "processor" composed of medium- and small-scale TTL integrated circuits. One would set you back about $32,000 in 1981 dollars.
Tree Searching, Part 1: Basic Techniques - Techniques for searching trees, e.g. the traveling-salesman problem of finding the shortest route through multiple cities.
One Step Forward - Three Steps Backup, Computing In the US Space Program - Space rating computers often means they are obsolete before they fly. Some of the testing includes repeated heating and cooling from +50 Celsius to -50 Celsius, mechanical shocks, electromagnetic interference, radiation, withstand up to 30G, intensive use for several years without any failures, etc. This article goes into more detail on the requirements for different types of space missions (near earth orbit, manned, planetary), space-rating microprocessors, tasks such computer perform, and much more.
Artificial Intelligence - As you can see, AI is hardly a new topic. This article focuses on using AI to organize vast amounts of data.
A High-Level Language Benchmark - A variation of the Sieve of Eratosthenes algorithm that can be easily implemented in a variety of languages to test performance.
Table of Contents from the September 1981 issue of Byte
Reviews
The Big Board: A Z80 System in Kit - The Big Board is a single board computer manufactured by Digital Research that includes 64K RAM, 24-line by 80-character video generator, keyboard interface, room for four 2K ROMs, and a floppy controller with options for parallel and serial ports and an on-board timer. This board cost $650. For an extra $50 they would solder the sockets for you. Then you just have to provide your own disk drive, cabinet/case, power supply, keyboard and monitor. A custom version of CP/M 2.2 was also available for it.
Misosys Software's DISKMOD - A utlity that will conver Radio Shack's cassette based editor/assembler for the TRS-80 Model I into a disk based version.
MINCE - A text editor for the 8080 family of computers and CP/M.
BYTE's Arcade: Big Five Software - A look at three games from Big Five Software for the TRS-80 Model I/III including Attack Force, Cosmic Fighter, and Galaxy Invasion. Plus a review of The Prisoner, a graphics adventure game based on the TV series of the same name for the Apple II.
Nucleus
Letters - Letters from readers regarding MIT Apple Logo, software piracy, programming compared to essay writing, a defense of Vikings, and more.
Book Reviews - A review of Principles of Artificial Intelligence by Nils J Nilsson.
Programming Quickies - A demonstration of changing a FOR...NEXT loop into a REPEAT...UNTIL loop.
BYTELINES - Tandy plans to double its hardware and software products within the next six months, Zilog to introduce and enhanced Z80 called the Z800, Commodore introduces 6508 processor, Sony starts providing OEMs with samples of its new 3.5-inch "microfloppy" disk drives, and more.
Ask BYTE - Questions answered about the safety of double-siding floppy disks, developing a proximity warning system for cars, expanding memory on Atari 400 and Atari 800 computers, and more.
There’s a famous scene inSeinfeldin which Georgepasseson a TV pilot deal with NBC, only to later accept for less money than originally offered.
“In other words, you held out for less money,” Jerrysaysafter George tells him the deal. “You know the basic idea of negotiation, as I understand it, is to get your price to go up.”
The scene comes to mind after learning about New Jersey’srecent attemptto save the environment by banning single-use plastic bags in grocery stores.
A new studypublished by Freedonia Custom Research confirmed that New Jersey’s law, which went into effect in 2022, backfired badly.
While the state’s ban — which, unlike those of other states, also prohibited single-use paper bags — led to a more than 60 percent decline in total bag volumes, it also had an unintended consequence: a threefoldincreasein plastic consumption for grocery bags.
How this happened is no mystery.
The massive increase in plastic consumption was driven by the popularity of heavy-duty polypropylene bags, which use about fifteen times more plastic than polyethylene plastic bags.
“Most of these alternative bags are made with non-woven polypropylene, which is not widely recycled in the United States and does not typically contain any post-consumer recycled materials,” the study explains. “This shift in material also resulted in a notable environmental impact, with the increased consumption of polypropylene bags contributing to a 500% increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to non-woven polypropylene bag production in 2015.”
Needless to say, this was not the result proponents of the policy had hoped for. Doug O’Malley, the director of the group Environment New Jersey, said in 2022 that the goal of the policy was to “initiate a culture shift” by reducing plastic waste and pollution. Instead, the policy has become the butt of jokes.
“This ought to be the motto of the climate lobby,” theWall Street Journaleditorial boardquipped. “We don’t help the environment, but we feel good about it anyway.”
What Happened?
New Jersey’s economic backfire deserves some mockery. As the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman famously pointed out, policies must be judged not by their intentions but by their results. And the results of the policy were dismal.
But it’s also important to understand why the policy failed. There are several explanations, but the best place to start is the policy’s flawed assumptions.
Policy makers assumed the heavy-duty polypropylene bags would be better for the environment because they can be used over and over again, unlike the single-use plastic bags. The problem is, evidence shows that few people actually do this.
As early as September 2022, theNew York Timeshad identified a major problemwith the ban on single-use plastic and paper bags. People were accumulating far too many of the heavier-styled polypropylene bags.
Indeed, the Grey Lady showed pictures of numerous shoppers who’d accumulated mountains of shopping bags. One problem was that delivery services were using the reusable bags to deliver groceries to consumers. As a result, instead of having a bunch of single-use plastic or paper bags they could save or discard, consumers had a plethora of heavy-duty reusable bags they could save or discard.
Though many people no doubt just pitched the bags, some people kept them to “avoid waste.” A man the newspaper interviewed named Brian Otto had 101 of them. Nicole Kramaritsch of Roxbury had 46 stuffed into her garage. A woman from Whippany had 74.
“I don’t know what to do with all these bags,” the Whippany womantoldtheTimes.
A second problem was that consumers didn’t like using their reusable bags over and over, which resulted in mass amounts of waste.
TheTimesquoted a professor at the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability who explained that a typical reusable polypropylene bag must be used “at least 10 times” to offset the additional energy they require compared to a typical plastic bag.
But the Freedonia study found that, on average, reusable polypropylene bags are used “two to three times before being discarded, falling short of the recommended reuse rates necessary to mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions generated during production and address climate change.”
The study doesn’t say why consumers typically only use a bag a few times before throwing it away, but it’s important to understand that consumers aren’t behaving irrationally in doing so.
An abundance of researchstretching back decadesshows those reusable plastic bags tend to carry bacteria, some of which can be dangerous.
New Yorkbanned single-use plastic bagsyears ago to “reduce waste and protect the environment,” but the state’s health department concedes reusable bags come with a trade-off.
“When you carry food or other items in these bags, they may leave behind germs like E. coli or Salmonella,”notesthe Department of Health. “If the bags are not properly washed and dried before they are used again, these germs remain and can make you sick.”
Many consumers likely determine it’s safer to pitch their reusable bags after a few uses rather than risk getting sick. And while some might clean their bags over and over to keep using them, perhaps more shoppers determine it’s not worth their time and energy.
Energy is a key word here. As sustainability engineers point out, cleaning reusable bags also requires resources, and not trivial amounts.
“Don’t always assume that reusable is the best option,”saysDr. Shelie Miller, an environmental engineer at University of Michigan’s Center for Sustainable Systems who co-authored a 2021 study titled “Environmental payback periods of reusable alternatives to single-use plastic kitchenware products.”
“Our study,” Dr. Miller added, “showed that some reusable alternatives never break even because it takes more energy, and generates more greenhouse gas emissions, to wash them than it takes to make the single-use plastic item.”
Of Good and Bad Economists
The outcome of New Jersey’s ban, as well as the research conducted by environmental engineers like Dr. Miller, is a perfect illustration of an economic truth.
“There are no solutions,” the economist Thomas Sowell once observed. “There are only trade-offs.”
Sometimes the trade-offs are good; sometimes they are not, as in New Jersey’s case. But every action or policy comes with countless secondary consequences. Indeed, even though New Jersey’s ban harmed both consumers and the environment, it was not without positive secondary consequences for some.
It turns out that the ban on single-use bags, which must be purchased, was a boon for manufacturers and grocery stores.
“An in-depth cost analysis evaluating New Jersey grocery retailers reveals a typical store can profit $200,000 per store location from alternative bag sales,” the Freedonia study asserted; “for one major retailer this amounts to an estimated $42 million in profit across all its bag sales in NJ.”
Ignoring the secondary consequences of a policy and focusing solely on its primary intended consequences is what the famous economics writer Henry Hazlitt identified as one of the greatest fallacies in “the dismal science,” and what separates a bad economist from a good one.
“The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye,” theEconomics in One Lessonauthor wrote. “The good economist also looks beyond.”
The Fatal Conceit
Still, there’s an even bigger economic lesson that can be gleaned from the Garden State’s quixotic effort to improve the environment through its clumsy ban. It’s one of economic humility.
“The curious task of economics,” the Nobel Prize-winning economist F. A. Hayek wrote inThe Fatal Conceit, “is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”
Economic systems are complex, virtually infinitely so. And the great lie of the 20th century was the hubristic belief that economies could be effectively administered through the centralization of decision-making, wielded by a small number of politicians and bureaucrats.
The effort to centralize economies was manifested most obviously in the rise of socialist systems in the 20th century, dozens of which failed miserably (and universally) and brought about widespread economic dysfunction and oppression.
But as the economist Ludwig von Mises pointed out, centralization did not just plague command-style economies. It also afflicted mixed economies that increasingly—and naturally, in Mises’s opinion—are pulled in the direction of statism.
“It is in the nature of a system of government control of business to aim at the utmost centralization,” Mises observed inBureaucracy. “In voting for government control of business the voters implicitly, although unwittingly, are voting for more centralization.”
This pull toward centralization stems from an idea, Hayek observed: the notion that man possesses the knowledge to plan economies effectively, which breeds a “fatal striving to control society.”
This is in stark contrast to the lesson of Leonard Read’s famous essay “I, Pencil,” which channels a message ofeconomic humilityin its recognition that, despite all of man’s grand feats, no person in the world could engineer something as simple as a lead pencil.
The miracle of the pencil (and billions of other products) is not a triumph of government or central planning, but of the invisible hand of capitalism, which involves billions of people working in voluntary concert together.
When we break from this model, we end up with policies that achieve results like those in New Jersey.
One can practically hear Jerry Seinfeld: “You know the basic idea of a ban on plastic grocery bags, as I understand it, is to get plastic consumption and greenhouse gasses to go down.”
I had the opportunity to pick up a huge batch of slides a while back. These pictures span from as early as the late 1940s to as late as the early 1990s. These came to me second hand but the original source was a combination of estate sales and Goodwill. There are many thousands of these slides. I will be scanning some from time to time and posting them here for posterity.
Getting your pictures processed as slides used to be pretty common but it was a phenomenon I missed out on. However, my Grandfather had a few dozen slides from the late 1950s that I acquired after he died. That along with having some negatives I wanted to scan is what prompted me to buy a flatbed scanner that could handle slides and negatives, an Epson V600. It can scan up to four slides at a time with various post-processing options and does a decent enough job.
This set continues a large batch of slides that originally came from an estate sale and appear to have belonged to a locally well known photographer (or perhaps a friend or family member) from the Spokane Washington area and later Northern Idaho named Leo Oestreicher. He was known for his portrait and landscape photography and especially for post cards. His career started in the 1930s and he died in 1990. These slides contain a lot of landscape and portrait photos but also a lot of photos from day to day life and various vacations around the world. Here's an article on him from 1997 which is the only info I have found on him: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/jan/04/photos-of-a-lifetime-museum-acquisition-of-leo/
Many of these slides had the date they were processed stamped or printed on them. I've found that in cases where I could verify the date, that this date has typically been the same month the photos were taken. In other words, I expect that in MOST cases these photos were taken relatively near the processing date.
Click the link below to also see versions processed with color restoration and Digital ICE which is a hardware based dust and scratch remover, a feature of the Epson V600 scanner I am using. There are also versions processed with the simpler dust removal option along with color restoration.
All of the photos in this set were processed in May 1966 and probably taken near that time. I can't tell for sure but they may have all been taken at the same event. Perhaps a dinner party or reception or something like that. The third photo makes it look like a fancy TV dinner party?
processed May 1966
processed May 1966
processed May 1966
processed May 1966
The entire collection that has been scanned and uploaded so far can also be found here.
PC World was one of the most popular PC magazines in the U.S. for a long time. It wouldn't surprise me if the late 1990s were its biggest years as that was when the Internet was taking off and suddenly everybody needed a computer. The February 1997 issue includes:
Cover Story
MMX Pentiums: Big Gain, No Pain - A test of a dozen of the first MMX PCs. Pentiums with MMX were faster than standard Pentiums in part because of the MMX instructions (though software had to specifically take advantage of those) but perhaps more significantly because of a doubling of the internal cache. At the time they were introduced, they were only slightly more expensive than their non-MMX counterparts (at least as part of pre-built systems). Desktop PCs from CLR, Compaq, Dell, Gateway, Micron, Packard Bell, Quantex, and Vektron with 166MHz and 200MHz MMX processors are compared with their non-MMX counterparts. Notebooks with 150-166MHz MMX processors are also compared. All systems come with 16-32MB of RAM.
Features
Microsoft Office 97: What's New - Office 97 was one of the longest lasting versions of Office. It really seemed like that version was in use forever. New features include various web features, a new interface, and the then brand new Outlook.
Best Routes to the Net: Top Internet Service Providers - A comparison of 12 Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Services looked at include America Online, AT&T WorldNet, CompuServe, Concentric Network, EarthLink Network, GTE Internet Solutions, IBM Internet Connection, MCI Internet, Microsoft Network, MindSpring, Netcom and SpryNet. None of these services offered broadband support at this time but most offered ISDN service. It's interesting to note that most services offered some space to create your own web pages. I don't really know if service providers do this anymore or not.
Beat Information Overload - Strategies for organizing your digital life.
Special Report
No Privacy on the Net - The more things change the more they stay the same. Privacy on the Internet still takes work to achieve. While security on the Internet has been improved an a great many ways, so too have the ways to scrape your personal info.
Table of Contents from the February 1997 issue of PC World
Multimedia
You Oughta Be In Pixels - A comparison of five video capture boards, each under $500. PC World gave the Best Buy to the Fast Electronics FPS/60 which could capture 320x240 resolution video at 30 and 60 fps. For only $499.
Title Reviews - Reviews of F-22 Lightning II from NovaLogic, Scorched Planet from Virgin, Titanic: Adventure Out of Time from CyberFlix/GTE, and Timelapse from GTE.
Hardware Reviews - A look at the best CD-ROM Drives and best Sound Boards. At the top of the list for CD-ROM drives is the Toshiba XM-5701B 12X. The top sound board is the Ensoniq Soundscape Vivo 90.
Top of the News
Online Vendors: How Can You Tell the Good From the Bad? - Pyramid schemes, undisclosed membership fees and more are all potential rip-offs you'll find online.
Cable Modems: Fastest Internet Access - A first look at Internet access via cable modem at speeds up to 10mbps. Availability was very limited at the time. I would get my cable modem about two years later and it was only 5mbps at first. Still, an always on connection at those speeds was massively better than dial-up. 56kbps modems were also just becoming available at this time which was a nice bump over 33.6 but nothing like broadband.
New Products
Teac CD-512E and Toshiba XM-5701B 12x CD-ROM drives - The latest and greatest in CD-ROM tech. The Teac was cheaper but the Toshiba performed much better.
MicroWorks Speakers - A nice set of speakers with subwoofer from Cambridge Soundworks.
Juggeler e-mail and voice mail utility - A utility that lets your PC read e-mail and play voice messages over the phone.
BocaPro Video Phone Elite - A video conferencing system you can use over phone lines.
Fujitsu LifeBooks - A new line of Pentium based notebooks from Fujitsu at prices ranging from $2299 to $3999.
HP Network Kit - Featuring thre PCI 10Base-T network adapters, eight-port hub, and three 50-foot cables for $499.
Monorail Home PC - An all-in-one PC featuring an AMD K5 processor (Pentium-75 equivalent), 16MB of RAM, 1.08GB hard drive, 4X CD-ROM drive, 16-bit sound and integrated 10.4-inch dual-scan color LCD screen for $999.
Kiplinger TaxCut Deluxe Multimedia, Personal Tax Edge, TurboTax Deluxe - A comparison of tax software with TurboTax being rated the best.
Table of Contents from the February 1997 issue of PC World (continued)
Top 100
Top 20 Power Desktops - Dell machines take four of the top five spots with the top system this month being the Dell Dimension XPS Pro200n featuring a Pentium Pro-200 CPU at $3349. My choice at the time probably would have been the the system coming it at number 7, the Gateway 2000 P5-200XL featuring a Pentium 200, 32MB RAM, and a 3GB hard drive for $2704.
Top 20 Budget Desktops - A couple of Dells, a couple of Gateways and a Micron round out the top 5. These all feature Pentium 133 CPUs except one of the Gateway machines has a Pentium Pro 180. Most of these have 16MB vs. the 32MB of the Power Desktop list. I actually have a P5-133 from Gateway but the version I have features the larger case they use for the Pentium Pro in this round-up.
Top 20 Notebook PCs - Gateway 2000 takes the top spot in both the Power chart and the Budget chart for notebooks. the Gateway 2000 Solo 2100 P-133, described as breathtakingly fast, features a Pentium 133, 40MB RAM, 12.1" Active Matrix Super VGA screen, 6X CD-ROM drive and 1.4GB hard drive for $4149. The Gateway 2000 Solo 2100 P-120 features a Pentium 120, 16MB RAM, 11.3" Dual Scan Super VGA screen, 6X CD-ROM drive and 810MB hard drive for $2499.
Personal Printers - The Panasonic KX-P6100 laser printer takes the top spot for black and white printers for $399 while the Epson Stylus Color 500 ink jet is at the top of the color chart for $279.
Table of Contents from the February 1997 issue of PC World (continued)
Here's How
Real Problem, Real Solution - Setting up telecommuting for work.
Answer Line - Questions answered about Windows 95 OSR2, managing multiple dial-up connections, and tracking modem performance with system monitor.
Windows Tips - How to get rid of unneeded Windows files and features, disabling automatic startup of apps, closing hidden programs, creating shortcuts within documents, and more.
Spreadsheet Tips - Linking formulas to web data in Quattro Pro 7.0.
Word Processing Tips - Creating vertical letterheads in Word, setting different column layouts on the same page, adding a background border in WordPerfect 7, and more.
At Home
At Home Products - A brief look at various products including a kids keyboard, a wine database on CD, Barbie Storymaker, and more.
Keeping Up - A look at interesting new websites including the then brand new Expedia, an online distance calculator, and a site for removing yourself from junk mail lists.
Top 5 Home PCs - At the top of the list is the Dell Dimension P200v featuring a 200MHz Pentium processor, 16MB RAM, 1.6GB hard drive, 8x CD-ROM drive, 28.8kbps modem and 15-inch monitor (CRT of course) all for $2349.
Departments
Up Front - An editorial on Internet privacy.
Letters - Letters from readers about Packard Bell's low prices and getting what you pay for, worst CD-ROMs, excellent tech support from U.S. Robotics, Compaq tech support complaints, web directories vs. search engines, Juno e-mail, OS/2 Warp, and more.
Consumer Watch - Solving your own problems and getting help in the most efficient way possible.
PCW Advocate - ZIP drive rebate delays from Iomega, reader gets Micron system he didn't order, and another praises APC's service.
Computer magazines have been around for a really long time. Or may I should say 'were' at this point as you can find no general computer magazines on the shelf these days. Anyway, Byte was first published starting in 1975. This issue is from March 1981 which was still roughly six months before the IBM PC was introduced. There were still plenty of home computers from Commodore, Atari, Apple and others as well as numerous CP/M based machines and other unique computers. This issue weighs in at almost 400 pages and includes:
Features
Structured Programming and Structured Flowcharts - An introduction to structured programming which could be accomplished in virtually any language with a goto statement.
Build the Disk-80: Memory Expansion and Floppy-Disk Control - A do-it-yourself hardware project in which you build an expansion interface for the TRS-80 model I that includes both expanded memory (up to 32K) and a floppy disk controller.
Three-Dimensional Computer Graphics, Part 1 - The part in a series on generating 3D polygonal graphics. Mostly this goes over the math involved.
What is Good Documentation? - A guide to producing good hardware and software documentation with minimal jargon.
A Beginner's Guide to Spectral Analysis, Part 2 - Part 1 introduced ideas behind the Fourier transform. This part extends those ideas into two-dimensional space. Includes examples in 6502 machine-language.
Table of Contents from the March 1981 issue of Byte
Reviews
The Micro Matrix Photopoint Light Pen - Light pens were once a popular way to interface with a computer. Ultimately, the mouse took over that roll. This review looks at one such light pen and some software that supports it.
What's Inside Radio Shack's Color Computer? - A detailed and technical look at the then new Tandy Color Computer. The Color Computer featured the partially 16-bit MC6809E CPU and up to 16K. While Radio Shack supported the Color Computer for more than a decade, it never really gained the popularity of machines like the Apple II, Atari 400/800, Commodore 64, VIC-20, etc. There are no good sales numbers but best guess seems to be that about 500,000 units were sold all the CoCo models combined. I had a neighbor that had a Coco 3 back in the day.
Nucleus
Editorial: Is This Really Necessary? - An editorial on design techniques.
Letters - Letters from readers about technical writing, Intel's educational products, SuperBrain upgrade costs, muSIMP for the TRS-80 Model I, and more.
Programming Quickies - Short BASIC programs for computing the determinant of a Matrix and displaying constellations.
Languages Forum: A Coding Sheet for FORTH - A form for creating a graphical representation of the stack in FORTH.
Byte's Bits - News bits including an IEEE study on terminals, a computer camp for kids 10-18, an online service for the TI-99/4, research for using computers to aid the handicapped, and more.
Technical Forum - A BASIC program that converts object code to data statements; a comparison of addition and subtraction operations between the 1802 and Z-80 processors; and a design for a simple video switch.
A squad of FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration agents in March 2021 raided the Beverly Hills location of a company, U.S. Private Vaults, suspected of criminal activity.
Over several days, agents wearing masks photographed evidence, seized jewels, gold bullion, and coins, and confiscated some contraband (mostly drugs) from 1,400 safe-deposit boxes rented by an array of people, including a retired doctor, a saxophone player, a retired floor contractor, and at least two attorneys.
The grand total seized by the FBI was $86 million in cold cash, as well as Rolex and Cartier watches, rare coins, and more silver and gold than even Yukon Cornelius could imagine.
U.S. Private Vaults, which was headquartered in Nevada, pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering and conspiracy the following year. (No one went to prison, and the company is no longer in business.) But it turns out U.S. Private Vaults wasn’t the only party that broke the law.
Last month, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the bureau violated the constitutional rights of safe-deposit box holders whose property was seized without probable cause, something the warrant explicitly prohibited.
To understand just how far the FBI overstepped its authority, it’s worth examining the case of Don Mellein, a retired civil servant from California.
Mellein was one of hundreds of people who had a safe-deposit box at U.S. Private Vaults, where he kept hundreds of thousands of dollars of coins for safekeeping.
When the FBI raided U.S. Private Vaults, it didn’t just search Mellein’s safe-deposit box. It seized his coins, something the FBI had explicitly said it wouldn’t do when it requested a warrant to raid U.S. Private Vaults (more on that in a minute).
Numerous other plaintiffs such as Mellein had their property taken simply because they were unlucky enough to have entrusted it to a company that was involved in some degree of criminal activity.
That the FBI had the chutzpah to ignore the judge’s warrant, which explicitly “d[id] not authorize a criminal search or seizure of box contents,” did not sit well with the court.
Judges called the seizures “egregious” and “outrageous” during oral arguments, comparing them to the Revolutionary War practices of the British, who would search and seize the property of colonials without probable cause.
“It was those very abuses of power,” the 9th Circuit Court noted, “that led to adoption of the Fourth Amendment in the first place.”
The Fourth Amendment protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” but it’s something for which the FBI agents had little regard.
Indeed, depositions from FBI agents suggest that “forfeiting” the property of safe-deposit box holders — some would call it “stealing” — was the FBI’s plan from the very beginning.
Excerpts of those depositions, which can be read at the Los Angeles Times and Reason, make it clear that the FBI had been planning a massive asset forfeiture operation months prior to filing its affidavit with U.S. Magistrate Judge Steve Kim.
They also reveal that the FBI had been planning all along to seize the contents of all safe-deposit boxes, so long as they contained at least $5,000 (the minimum established by the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture Policy Manual). Testimony makes it clear the FBI was not particularly concerned whether these people were actually criminals, or that the agent who submitted the affidavit had assured Kim that the property rights of customers would be respected.
We only know all of this because a judge denied a request from the U.S. attorney’s office — surprise, surprise — to block disclosure of those depositions, laying “bare the government’s deception,” in the words of the Los Angeles Times reporter Michael Finnegan.
To call the FBI’s actions deceptive is an understatement.
Finnegan’s reporting shows FBI agents and U.S. attorneys behaving in almost mafialike fashion, demanding bank records, tax returns, and sworn statements from safe-deposit box holders and their family members — just to get their own money back!
When you read how a U.S. attorney asked a glassmaker’s lawyer how much his client was willing to pay the feds to give him his money back, you realize the 9th Circuit was not engaging in hyperbole. The FBI’s raid is not dissimilar to the “writs of assistance” that permitted Red Coats “to break open doors, Chests, Trunks, and other Packages” to find contraband or “stolen” items, a practice despised by the Colonials.
“It is a power that places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer,” the 18th century statesman James Otis said in a famous speech against the writs, which led to the eventual adoption of the Fourth Amendment.
The question now is: Who will be held accountable for the FBI’s lawless, shameless raid?
I had the opportunity to pick up a huge batch of slides a while back. These pictures span from as early as the late 1940s to as late as the early 1990s. These came to me second hand but the original source was a combination of estate sales and Goodwill. There are many thousands of these slides. I will be scanning some from time to time and posting them here for posterity.
Getting your pictures processed as slides used to be pretty common but it was a phenomenon I missed out on. However, my Grandfather had a few dozen slides from the late 1950s that I acquired after he died. That along with having some negatives I wanted to scan is what prompted me to buy a flatbed scanner that could handle slides and negatives, an Epson V600. It can scan up to four slides at a time with various post-processing options and does a decent enough job.
This set continues a large batch of slides that originally came from an estate sale and appear to have belonged to a locally well known photographer (or perhaps a friend or family member) from the Spokane Washington area and later Northern Idaho named Leo Oestreicher. He was known for his portrait and landscape photography and especially for post cards. His career started in the 1930s and he died in 1990. These slides contain a lot of landscape and portrait photos but also a lot of photos from day to day life and various vacations around the world. Here's an article on him from 1997 which is the only info I have found on him: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/jan/04/photos-of-a-lifetime-museum-acquisition-of-leo/
Many of these slides had the date they were processed stamped or printed on them. I've found that in cases where I could verify the date, that this date has typically been the same month the photos were taken. In other words, I expect that in MOST cases these photos were taken relatively near the processing date.
Click the link below to also see versions processed with color restoration and Digital ICE which is a hardware based dust and scratch remover, a feature of the Epson V600 scanner I am using. There are also versions processed with the simpler dust removal option along with color restoration.
All of the photos in this set were processed in May 1966 and probably taken near that time. The first three feature landscape shots...the first from a cliff overlooking the ocean, the second from a boat and the third a close-up of some greenery. The final photo shows four people but they are unidentified...perhaps father, mother and their two older children?
processed May 1966
processed May 1966
processed May 1966
processed May 1966
The entire collection that has been scanned and uploaded so far can also be found here.
Subtitled "The Small Systems Journal", Byte covered a wide variety of home and hobby computers in its earlier days. Towards the end of its life, it became more of a standard PC magazine. In 1985, however, it was large (almost 500 pages for this issue) and covered a lot. The September 1985 issue includes:
Features
Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar: Build the SB180 Single-Board Computer - The SB180 was a single board computer featuring a 6 MHz HD64180 processor from Hitachi that was Z80 code compatible and could directly address 512KB of RAM (as opposed to the more limited 64K that the Z80 could directly address). This first part of a two part series focuses on the hardware.
Programming Project: An Analysis of Sorts - A look at the algorithms and speed of various sorting algorithms including the selection sort, merge sort, and quick sort.
The DSI-32 Coprocessor Board, Part 2: The Software - The second of a two part series on the DSI-32 co-processor board for the IBM PC. The co-processor in this case is the National Semiconductor 32032. This part focuses on the software.
An Algorithm for Disk Caching with Limited Memory - A set of C-language routines for caching data from floppy disks.
Astrophysical Number Crunching - A history of the use of "personal computers" in theoretical astrophysics. Or at least the history from one astrophysicist's perspective.
Table of Contents from the September 1985 issue of Byte
Themes
EGO: A Hombuilt CPU, Part I: The Software - The first of a two-part series on the author's experience crating a homemade CPU. This part focuses on the instruction set.
The Quarter-Meg Atari 800XL - Upgrading your Atari 800XL all the way to 256K and turning some of that RAM into a RAMdisk. This article includes a parts list and instructions for constructing your own 256K expansion.
A Parallel-To-Serial Printer Port Adapter - Instructions for building a $35 parallel-to-serial printer port adapter that will allow you to connect a serial printer to your parallel port.
Reviews
Reviewer's Notebook - A brief look at upcoming products including the HP 110 Portable Plus and a WORM drive featuring a 400MB capacity for a mere $5000.
The Kaypro 16 - A portable PC compatible featuring two floppy drives (or one flopp drive and one hard drive) and 256K of RAM for $2295 to $3295 depending on whether you want that hard drive or not.
The Osborne 3 - Another portable PC compatible featuring an 80C86 running at 3.5 MHz, two 5.25" disk drives, 256K RAM and an LCD (80 characters x 16 lines). It's only partially PC compatible though and will not work with programs that directly address the hardware.
WordStar 2000 - A new easier to use version of this word processor for MS-DOS 2.0. It cost between $500 and $600 depending on whether you got the plus version or not.
XyWrite II Plus - A less expensive word processor ($300). It was somewhat unique in that many of its commands were done through a command line interface vs. menus.
Filevision - A visual data management system for the Macintosh.
Table of Contents from the September 1985 issue of Byte (continued)
Kernel
Computing At Chaos Manor: PC's, Peripherals, Programs, and People - Jerry Pournelle reports on a joint press conference by Apple's Steve Jobs and Microsoft's William Gates in which they announced Excel for the Macintosh and Switcher, a program that allows you to switch between programs on the Mac. Plus a look at a lot of other products including a new version of BASIC.
Byte U.K.: Seventh Anniversary of Microcomputing - A condensed history of personal computing in Britain for the 10th anniversary of Byte. Plus a look at the Husky Hunter.
Byte Japan: A History of Japan's Microcomputers - Some of the computers covered here include the TLCS-12, uCOM-4, uCOM-8, uCOM-16, NEC 700, TK-80, MZ-80, and PC-8001.
According to Webster: West Coast Faire, Mac Stuff, and the Amiga - The West Coast Computer Faire isn't what it used to be; Apple to offer ROM upgrade for the Mac but only for those that haven't done their own mods; the Amiga shines as the only easily expandable new low cost computer; and more.
Departments
Editorial - Looking back at the last 10 years of personal computers plus, helping The Computer Museum expand its exhibits.
Microbytes - Optical drives, CD-ROMs, image scanners and laser printers show up at the National Computer Conference in Chicago; Motorolla asks FCC to allow radio LANs; Epson, ABC and Indesys signed agreement to deliver electronic info over FM radio station; and more.
Letters - Letters from readers about the AT&T PC 6300, DEC's Rainbow, the IBM PC (a vote against coverage), more powerful BASIC, and more.
What's New - A brief look at new products including the SwyftCard for the Apple IIe, VP-Planner from Paperback Software, Corvus Cheetah 68010 based workstation, the Megadata 8300 Model Seven 68000 based Unix workstation, 10 and 20 megabyte hard drives from HP, and more.
