A Slice of History: BYTE Magazine, the Small Systems Journal, Turns 50

This month marks the 50th anniversary of one of the giants of the technology magazine world: BYTE, The Small Systems Journal, which hit shelves in September 1975 promising a look at "computers — the world's greatest toy."

BYTE's origins can be traced to Wayne Green's 73 Magazine, a publication he launched in October 1960 for the amateur radio community. Warm reader reception to articles about the nascent field of personal computing in 1974 and 1975 had Green thinking about a magazine dedicated to microcomputing, and a deal with Carl Helmers — author of a series of articles detailing an Intel 8008-based homebrew computer called the Experimenter's Computer System — would give birth to BYTE.

"This is the first issue of a new publication — BYTE," Helmers wrote in the launch issue. "A monthly compendium of information for the owners and users of the new microcomputer systems becoming widely available at moderate cost. BYTE is your unit of information on the state of the art of small computer systems for individual persons, clubs and classroom groups. Each month you will find information ranging from computer club announcements to manufacturers' advertisements, from technical details of hardware and software to humorous articles and editorial opinions."

"Two series of events came together and triggered BYTE," Green wrote in the same issue. "One was the surprising response I received from the readers of 73 Magazine (amateur radio) every time I published an article involving computers. The other event was the success of 73, with more subscriptions and advertising calling for some sort of computerization of the drudgery — the billing, record keeping, reader's service, indexing, and such. There ought to be a magazine covering the whole thing, thought I. A magazine which would help the neophite to grapple with programming languages… would permit the beginner to build microcomputers and peripherals… would provide a dialog for the more sophisticated to communicate as well. How about a publication would would cover all aspects of small computer systems?"

That first issue, published in September 1975, proved a hit — but there would only be four issues under Green, with the publisher arriving in the 73 Magazine office one day to find the entire BYTE staff gone; future issues would go up under the banner of Byte Publications, of which Helmers was a co-owner. As a result, Green would launch a rival, Kilobaud — initially Kilobyte, before BYTE took out a trademark on the term.

"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," Helmers wrote in the magazine's sixth issue. "We'll leave the complete story for our memoirs, but the fact is we've moved across town to the American Guernsey Cattle Club building (known as 'the Guernsey' to Peterborough residents.)"

The launch of the Atair 8800 had driven an explosion of interest in microcomputer in general and personal computing in particular, and BYTE — which, in keeping with its origins in the world of radio hams, took a hands-on and technical approach in its coverage — drew considerable interest. In 1979 it was sold to McGraw-Hill, where it became its second-best-selling technology publication behind Business Week. When IBM's Personal Computer came out in 1981, the magazine responded with an editorial shift towards a more professional readership — dropping most of its hands-on and amateur coverage in favor of product reviews, previews, and business news.

The shift might not have been popular with the magazine's original readership, but it was the smart thing to do commercially: in the 1980s BYTE was considered the pinnacle of technology press, and its popularity coupled with that cachet allowed it to sustain enough advertising to ride out the economic doldrums of the mid-1980s. In 1985, the magazine had its own online service — a dial-in bulletin board system (BBS) dubbed the BYTE Information Exchange (BIX), also available via Tymnet — and in 1993 it staked a claim on the World Wide Web.

Sadly, the 1990s were not as kind to BYTE as the decade prior: declining circulation and a fall in advertising revenue saw McGraw-Hill sell the magazine to CMP Media in May 1998 — only for the company to cease printing and lay off all staff two months later. In 1999, BYTE relaunched as an online-only publication — which was, in turn, shut down in 2009, after seven years of subscription-only access. UBM TechWeb picked up the domain and tried again in 2011, but Byte.com — as its last incarnation was known — closed its doors for good in 2013.

Those who remember the magazine's glory days, when it would land on the doormat with the resounding thud of a full half-inch stack of paper, will recall the iconic cover art or Robert Tinney, the cartoons of Tom Sloan, and sci-fi author Jerry Pournelle's ongoing column The View From Chaos Manor, which charted his personal experiences venturing out into the world of microcomputing and related technology. Others may remember Steve Ciarcia's column, Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar — the popularity of which would see Ciarcia split off from BYTE and launch his own Circuit Cellar magazine.

Regardless of what tickles your particular nostalgia button, all 277 issues of BYTE are available on this microfiche-inspired website created by Hector Dearman, laying out every page as a flat-plan and providing full-text searching for the ability to rapidly home in on topics of interest.

"The relationship between Computing and its history is that of a willful amnesiac," Dearman says of the site. "We discard the past as fast as possible, convinced it cannot possibly contain anything of value. This is a mistake. The classic homilies are accurate: failing to remember the past we are condemned to repeat it – as often as tragedy as farce."