Omikron TRS-80 Boards, NEWDOS+ and Sundry Other Matters (1980)

Scroll around for some highlights.<p>What did USR used to sell as well as modems? 300 baud modems mind you, not fancy v.Everything Couriers yet.<p>Ad for full height floppy drives and 14&quot; hard drives.<p>Apple III review. X10 home automation project with circuit diagrams. Now, if only X10 had been followed up with a standard into the TCP&#x2F;IP years... ;)<p>BASIC Listings at the back. With explanations of the listings.<p>I miss Byte, oh and Personal Computer World (UK), Amiga Transactor and Dr Dobbs. ...and the terrible ads!<p>Oh well, feeling old with my morning coffee.

I miss Byte. I’m a second-gen programmer and in the late 80s and 90s my dad had a subscription to Byte and a few UK computing trade papers. I’d read it cover to cover even if I didn’t really understand most of the contents, but Jerry’s column always stood out against the rest. He seemed to be a natural communicator.

Oh wow! I had to cringe at the &quot;Why Pay $4000 For A Complete Accounting System&quot; ad. That&#x27;s probably the worst copy I have seen.<p>First it rambles on about a very boring history of this company took over that company that licensed this thing that ...<p>Then just incase you haven&#x27;t fallen asleep and you still want to buy, they put you off by telling you you&#x27;ll get bad support and a buggy product.<p>Then finally past that hurdle, and if anyone is left with their wallet open, thinking of spending their hard earned $100, it inflates the price to $450 because there is some technical dependency on some runtime thingy.<p>I wonder; Did anyone buy?

The amazing thing about Byte was the amount of cash it generated in ad sales. Ad spaces cost hundreds or thousands of dollars depending on size, and the magazine was packed full of them. In the 80s it was a real cash cow, generating millions a year after printing and distribution costs. Ad revenue only declined when the Internet began to take over in the 90s.<p>The other amazing thing is how expensive computers were in real terms. You can add a zero to early 1980s prices to get a rough RPI equivalent. Business systems advertised for &gt;$10k on paper cost serious money - and usually offered an 8-bit CPU running at a few MHz, and 64K of RAM for those willing to stretch their budget.

Wow, memories. A TRS-80 was my first computer at age 16 and I still remember upgrading from 4K (K!) to 16k and wondering what I would ever do with all that memory!

(nitpicking!) I love Jerry Pournelle but he made a little mistake in his text, it&#x27;s not &quot;chansons du geste&quot; but &quot;chansons d_e_ geste&quot;.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fr.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Chanson_de_geste" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fr.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Chanson_de_geste</a>