BYTE, the most beloved computer-magazine brand of all, is coming back.

The back story of Byte (if anyone cares) is that Carl Helmers, who was working at Intermetrics at Fresh Pond in Cambridge, MA at the time (1973? 74?--forget details at this late date), was publishing a little samizdat Intel 4004/8008 hobbyist newsletter on the side (mimeographed, etc.).<p>I was working at Intermetrics (mostly a government compiler house at the time) as a consultant on a competitor language to ADA, as a sophomore in college. Dan Fylstra, a friend from San Diego high school days, and the future founder of VisiCorp (publisher of VisiCalc), was also working there, and we were both interested in what Carl was doing.<p>Somehow, he dragged us both into talking to Wayne Green, then the somewhat eccentric publisher of the most popular ham radio magazine, up in Peterborough, NH, and we three got Byte off the group with Wayne's help. (Carl was the main editor, and I was just a part-time editor/writer.)<p>As much as I enjoyed the work, I was still in school full-time, and also working more than full-time at Intermetrics (hey, it was fun work and paid well), so I had to drop out later that fall. Not sure what happened to Dan's involvement, but I think he also was then at Harvard Business School after undergrad at MIT (and soon thereafter starting VisiCorp), and thus pretty short on time.<p>The very early Bytes were completely "golly, gee whiz, look what you can do with this thing!" and more like Carl's newsletter--very amateur. I guess it eventually got a lot more professional, but I never really kept up with it.<p>(Edit: Hunh, looking at some of these scans, I managed to stay on the masthead as an associate for quite some time after I dropped off the map.)

All Byte fans (and 20-somethings that have never heard of Byte) - some guy is scanning issues to pdf here:<p><a href="http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/167235-byte-magazine/" rel="nofollow">http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/167235-byte-magazine/</a><p>Get them. Read them. You're welcome :)

I am french. At the time reading Byte was basically like having the Internet today, suddenly amazing things were "available". The magazine was not easy to find in France in the early 80's. I read all the back issues I could find.<p>Nothing is perfect. I blame the (in)famous 1990 article "Is Unix dead?" for keeping me away from Unix for years.

The article includes a picture of the December 1975 cover issue:<p><a href="http://technologizer.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/bytecover.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://technologizer.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/bytecover.j...</a><p>The first listed article is "What is a Character"; it amuses me that thirty-five years later, with the invention of Unicode, you could still fill a few pages with an article under that headline.

The story of what happened to BYTE in 1998, from Jerry Pournelle's point of view:<p><a href="http://www.jerrypournelle.com/slowchange/fiasco.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.jerrypournelle.com/slowchange/fiasco.html</a><p>And from the perspective of Tom R. Halfhill, BYTE Magazine senior editor:<p><a href="http://www.halfhill.com/bytefaq.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.halfhill.com/bytefaq.html</a>

I loved BYTE, but I could lose the hyperbole: <i>What’s the most-loved computer magazine of all time? There’s really only one contender: BYTE,</i><p>Creative Computing, Kilobaud, and Dr Dobb's Journal are all strong contenders, in my book.

I loved BYTE, back in the day. At one point, I lugged around ten years' worth of back issues, before giving them to the local library.<p>I'm not very hopeful for the new edition. From the press release: the new BYTE "will serve as the professional’s guide to consumer technology, providing news, analysis, reviews, and insight across the media gamut."<p>Not reaching very high, are they? This doesn't sound like the publication that gave us in-depth articles on every bus type from S-100 on, languages such as Forth and Smalltalk, and Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar ...

When I was twelve years old, I read these magazines cover to cover at my local library (even the really old ones), and ESPECIALLY loved Jerry Pournelle's "Chaos Manor" columns in the back. To see its name being mentioned again warms my heart, even if Pournelle isn't involved.

I loved Byte.<p>As a kid growing up in South Africa, Byte was my connection to the outside world. International sanctions made computers incredibly expensive. Byte gave me hope that if I could just get abroad...<p>I would sit for hours in the local library and read 6 month old issues and live in hope that I would one day be able to play with the machines mentioned in there.

It won't be the same without Chaos Manor. :(

Still won't be good unless they bring back <i>Ciarcia's Circuit Celler</i> as a regular feature.

As a CS student in Guatemala in the 80s, Byte was like news from the cutting edge of technology. We used to get like 5-10 copies for the only store that sold them, and they went fast. I had to literally keep up with their shipping schedule in order to get my copy.<p>I've missed the deep technical articles, and fighting with my PC Magazine-reading friends about the superiority of our magazine.<p>Just recently, I was wrestling with the idea of discarding my old Byte magazines, but I really couldn't throw them away, some of the articles are still very good to read. I still have the Byte CD-ROM, wonder if it would still work?

I hope this is not the usual resurrected brand disappointment, Amiga-like.

Two words, young folk: "Cover painting" <a href="http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/169" rel="nofollow">http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/169</a>

Crash magazine will always be my most beloved.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_%28magazine%29" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_%28magazine%29</a>

The announcement makes it sound as if the magazine isn't coming back - just a relaunched website. Anyone know if this is the case? I'm one of those people who likes to have a physical magazine to flick through.<p>I paid for a three year Byte subscription with my first pay cheque and got two issues before the magazine folded, so am keen to get back to it!

I think I still have the 1st two years' edition packed up in a box in the shed...moved from home, to college, thru 3 apartments, then 3 houses, and now in my shed. Never opened the boxes, but they survived many, many cleanouts. Don't really know why.

I don't want to break anyone's hopes but this doesn't really sounds good to me :<p>"[BYTE] will serve as the professional’s guide to consumer technology, providing news, analysis, reviews, and insight across the media gamut"

Loved Byte. What a dense collection of enjoyable articles every month. I'd subscribe and I don't get any paper magazines any more.<p>I don't understand the business case for gutting this fine publication.

I hope they are able to bring back their archive of stories back to the beginning of the magazine. That is a tremendous amount of information documenting the beginning of the personal computer era.

Never heard of it.

Yay!!!