[HN Gopher] Byte Magazine - Atari Articles (1979-1993)
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       Byte Magazine - Atari Articles (1979-1993)
        
       Author : vo2maxer
       Score  : 41 points
       Date   : 2021-10-09 05:38 UTC (17 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (archive.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (archive.org)
        
       | protomyth wrote:
       | The Introduction to Atari Graphics was a pretty damn nice
       | article. I loved programming the Antic and Pokey (sound) chips in
       | the Atari 8-bit computers. You could really do things the Apple
       | folks couldn't. Plus, four joystick / paddle ports were fun to
       | hook up electronics to.
       | 
       | Does anyone remember the Action language?
        
         | brianpaul wrote:
         | Yes! I did a ton of projects in Action! for a number of years.
         | Lots of fun and learned a lot.
        
       | varjag wrote:
       | Tech writers just don't have this edge anymore!
       | 
       |  _The more experienced programmer seeking cybernetic high
       | adventure must first defeat the friendliness engineered into the
       | machine to unleash its throbbing brute power._
        
       | metagame wrote:
       | For anyone not aware, pretty much every BYTE issue is in the
       | Archive. If you have a favorite article from childhood that you
       | want to update for your kids, it's a gold mine. There are
       | hundreds of tutorials ranging from introductions to programming
       | for people who've never done so before to incredibly complex
       | programming language implementations.
       | 
       | If you're new to BYTE, you should spend a little time exploring:
       | https://archive.org/search.php?query=byte%20magazine
       | 
       | A general rule of thumb is that any cover with a photograph on it
       | is past the magazine's prime, and you'll probably have a lot more
       | fun looking through older ones instead.
       | 
       | (Edited s/picture/photograph at suggestion of TMWNN for more
       | concision.)
        
         | TMWNN wrote:
         | >A general rule of thumb is that any cover with a ~~picture~~
         | _photograph_ on it is past the magazine 's prime, and you'll
         | probably have a lot more fun looking through older ones
         | instead.
         | 
         | FTFY
        
         | allturtles wrote:
         | It seems the very first issue had a picture on it. From July
         | 1976 all the covers had full-color art:
         | 
         | https://www.digibarn.com/collections/mags/byte-covers/
         | 
         | So I'm not sure what you mean.
        
           | metagame wrote:
           | The first three don't have illustrations. There's one or two
           | after that in the "good" run of BYTE that don't. All of the
           | rest do. After 1987, their illustrator was replaced with a
           | photographer and Photoshop.
           | 
           | <<From 1975 to 1986, Byte covers usually featured the artwork
           | of Robert Tinney. These covers made Byte visually unique. In
           | 1987, Tinney's paintings were replaced by product
           | photographs, and Steve Ciarcia's "Circuit Cellar" column was
           | discontinued.>>
           | 
           | I said it was a rule of thumb, not an exact measurement.
        
             | allturtles wrote:
             | So by picture you mean photograph? To me an illustration is
             | a kind of picture.
        
       | yardshop wrote:
       | Fun to look at these!
       | 
       | I was also happy to find old issues of Computer Language Magazine
       | [1] which I used to love back in those days even though many of
       | the articles were way beyond me.
       | 
       | They also have Nibble Magazine for Apple ][ Enthusiasts [2] with
       | playable versions of their code diskettes! The magazine images
       | are all in monochrome though as they were extracted from
       | microfilm, and one needs to sign up and borrow the magazine to
       | see the full contents. It's worth supporting the Internet Archive
       | to do so though.
       | 
       | I remember typing in the machine code listings to get some
       | software to run, and proofing long printouts on the bus ride to
       | and from school when they didn't work! Developing fundamental
       | development skills!
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://archive.org/search.php?query=computer%20language%20m...
       | 
       | [2] https://archive.org/details/pub_nibble
        
       | pronoiac wrote:
       | It's nice to see here! I wrote the index by year comment /
       | review, and I wasn't sure whether 1-up or 2-up was better.
       | Thoughts?
        
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       (page generated 2021-10-09 23:01 UTC)