Yeah, and in BYTE's case specifically, its always somewhat eclectic mix of mostly microcomputer-based topics worked OK for the hobbyists and early practitioners who tended to have pretty eclectic and wide-ranging interests themselves.
But, as you say, the whole space got generally more corporate and more specialized and BYTE's lack of a real identity showed. I recall being invited to a press event when they were trying some sort of reboot in the aughts but it obviously didn't work.
That eclectic mix of content made BYTE by far my favorite of the early computer magazines. (And I worked for Compute! Magazine.) "Dr. Dobbs" was a close second. And "Creative Computing" had the best BASIC games of the S-100 bus era.
"Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar" was one of my favorite columns in the early BYTE. I tried to build some of his designs (and maybe one actually worked) and really enjoyed Steve Ciarcia's self-published book. It might seem weird to have this column in a computer magazine, but this was not long after the era of homebuilt computers (in the first year of his store, my dad used to actually offer to build computers when people bought them) so knowing your way around a soldering iron wasn't unusual for 1979 computer hackers.
While my early computer experiences came later (my first machine was a TRS-80 Color Computer in 1984, when I was in the 5th grade), Byte Magazine and "Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar" were both things I enjoyed then and later.
The same with all the other magazines you mention, including Compute! (for some reason, your name seems familiar to me). I still have most of those magazines from then; and I still peruse them from time to time. One of my favorite issues of Creative Computing was focused on graphics, and it had an article on fractal terrain generation, along with a BASIC code implementation for the Apple IIe and IBM PC. I ended up converting it to run on my Color Computer.
As far as Byte Magazine and "Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar" is concerned, I never built any of the circuits described, but I did love to read about them. Once I became an adult, and got my old computers back from my parents (still have 'em, they all work!) - I recalled these articles, and some research led me to the books. I eventually collected all the books (and a few back issues of Byte). Reading thru them brought back memories of being a kid.
At one point - I think it was the article about how he automated his home with this custom computer system (probably based around a Z80 or something, I don't recall) controlling a heap of relays to switch circuits in his house - I decided to see if he was still around. I found his email, and sent out a message.
He eventually got back in contact with me; I had wondered about his home automation system and his lab, etc. He sent me some recent pictures of his home and workshop. Different of course, but still some of it stayed the same. IIRC, he had replaced the home automation system with something newer, but it was still something he tinkered with on occasion.
I don't know what it is - maybe nostalgia or something? - I tend to like to contact these "greats" of the past (and present) to tell them how I have appreciated their work from the past, and how it helped me to become the software engineer I am today. Sometimes, I'm too late, unfortunately. But these men were my heroes and inspiration toward my present career path. I never intended for software engineering to be my career; it was something I kinda fell into. But I have always been programming in some manner or another, ever since getting my first computer.
I enjoyed Circuit Cellar although mostly vicariously. You were entering a period when doing interesting electronics projects tended to require more dedication and effort than I was really willing to put into it although I played around for a time.
You were getting past the time when Heathkits and so forth were really practical, surface-mount was becoming common, etc. but obviously well before the current wave of Arduinos, Raspberry Pis, and so forth.
I don't think surface-mount was a thing yet in 1979. I built a Z-80 machine in 1980 -- yes, hand-soldering some of the chips onto the boards -- and I don't recall there being any surface-mounted components. Though I guess I wouldn't be surprised if the IBM PC had some, and that was only a year later.
There's a picture in that article showing flatpack SMT ICs - note that's from 1966.
Of course, that machine was bleeding-edge state-of-the-art for the time period, and anticipated hobbyist machines of the late 1970s.
If you're interested in this kind of stuff, it is fascinating to review the history of electronics. Things were pretty much strictly vacuum tube for a long time, but even there were a lot of innovation. When transistors came on the scene, things got weird quickly.
A great way I found to explore this, from a "contemporary interested layman hobbyist" perspective - is to go on google books, and look up Popular Science magazine. They have virtually all the issues scanned and available to read. Start from about 1940, and just peruse the issues. Plenty of great articles on interesting technology of the past eras, along with electronics projects and such using the "latest tech" of the period. You'll find some interesting things in there that you likely never knew about.
For instance - toward the end of the vacuum tube era, in a "last ditch" effort to keep them relevant, vacuum tubes went "solid state" - if you saw some today, you would think they were large metal-can transistors from the 1960s or 70s, but they were actually miniature metal-can vacuum "tubes" using similar construction and materials as those transistors; they had to be assembled inside a vacuum chamber! Most of them went into a few brands of high-end transistor televisions, but needed some tube components for their power-handling capabilities. So, hybrids developed...
Probably right. I was talking more mid-eighties timeframe. (Which Wikipedia confirms is when it became widely-used though IBM first demonstrated in 1960 or so.)
I used to get BYTE from circa 1983 until the very end. What was noticeable was how physically thin BYTE had gotten near the end. Lifting just a year's worth of early BYTE magazines could almost put your back out :)
That said, even at the end, it was still a cut above most other computer magazines on UK newsracks.
I saw an archive of an issue on C, and I was shocked by two things- the enormous length- that one ran on over 300 pages, and even more-so, that a lot of the articles were still absolutely relevant today!
It seems like a piece of history I was a little late to the party to. By the time I first picked one up, it had become a thin magazine not a whole lot better than PC Magazine.
PC Magazine itself hit something like 800 pages at some point in the 80s at which point it went from monthly to bi-weekly. It was quite good at its peak. For example, it had regular assembler and power user columns. I was certainly more corporate and product-oriented than BYTE with some massive product comparisons. I subscribed to both for a long time.
How about another - do you remember Computer Shopper?
That was the go-to magazine if you were building your own machine. It's heyday was sometime in the early 1990s, when PCs were starting to branch out and become consumer-oriented items. But in the 386-486 era - that was an insane magazine to peruse (big too!).
Really, one could say it marked the end of a particular era - that of hobbyist machines. While it was a technically oriented magazine, it did cater to those who wanted to build their own systems (maybe not from the component level). Once the PC became something you could easily pick up just about anywhere, it started to get thinner and thinner, then finally disappeared.
That was also the end of the "mom-n-pop" style PC computer parts stores. There are a scant few that linger on today (mostly they sell used machines refurbed or rebuilt - though some have gotten into building and selling retro machines, sometimes for steep prices).
Computer Shopper was awesome, but calling it a "magazine" is a bit of a stretch. It was more like a shared catalog in which companies could rent space. :-)
If I remember right, it had just enough editorial material to squeak past the line that divided the less-expensive postal rates for literature from the more-expensive rates for advertising.
Yep. Monstrous. Even if you didn't start building your own, whatever you had was too slow so you were always looking to upgrade components.
Also the Ken Gordon Computer Shows.
I actually upgraded/built a system a few days ago but even I'm pretty much out of doing that sort of thing. Wouldn't have done it if it wasn't a Linux server thing and I already had a number of parts.
But, as you say, the whole space got generally more corporate and more specialized and BYTE's lack of a real identity showed. I recall being invited to a press event when they were trying some sort of reboot in the aughts but it obviously didn't work.