Computer magazine

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Computer magazines are about computers and related subjects, such as networking and the Internet. Most computer magazines offer (or offered) advice, some offer programming tutorials, reviews of the latest technologies, and advertisements.

Contents

History

1940s–1950s

Sources:. [1]

1960s–1970s

1980s

1980s computer magazines skewed their content towards the hobbyist end of the then-microcomputer market, and used to contain type-in programs, but these have gone out of fashion. The first magazine devoted to this class of computers was Creative Computing . Byte was an influential technical journal that published until the 1990s.

In 1983 an average of one new computer magazine appeared each week. [18] By late that year more than 200 existed. Their numbers and size grew rapidly with the industry they covered, and BYTE and 80 Micro were among the three thickest magazines of any kind per issue. [19] Compute! 's editor in chief reported in the December 1983 issue that "all of our previous records are being broken: largest number of pages, largest-number of four-color advertising pages, largest number of printing pages, and the largest number of editorial pages". [20]

Computers were the only industry with product-specific magazines, like 80 Micro, PC Magazine , and Macworld ; their editors vowed to impartially cover their computers whether or not doing so hurt their readers' and advertisers' market, while claiming that their rivals pandered to advertisers by only publishing positive news. [21] BYTE in March 1984 apologized for publishing articles by authors with promotional material for companies without describing them as such, and in April suggested that other magazines adopt its rules of conduct for writers, such as prohibiting employees from accepting gifts or discounts. InfoWorld stated in June that many of the "150 or so" industry magazines published articles without clearly identifying authors' affiliations and conflicts of interest. [22]

Many magazines ended that year[ when? ], however, as their number exceeded the amount of available advertising revenue despite revenue in the first half of the year five times that of the same period in 1982. Consumers typically bought computer magazines more for advertising than articles, which benefited already leading journals like BYTE and PC Magazine and hurt weaker ones. Also affecting magazines was the computer industry's economic difficulties, [18] including the video game crash of 1983, which badly hurt the home-computer market. Dan Gutman, the founder of Computer Games, recalled in 1987 that "the computer games industry crashed and burned like a bad night of Flight Simulator —with my magazine on the runway". [23] Antic 's advertising sales declined by 50% in 90 days, [24] Compute!'s number of pages declined from 392 in December 1983 to 160 ten months later, [25] and Compute! and Compute!'s Gazette 's publisher assured readers in an editorial that his company "is and continues to be quite successful ... even during these particularly difficult times in the industry". [26] Computer Gaming World stated in 1988 that it was the only one of the 18 color magazines that covered computer games in 1983 to survive the crash. [27] Compute! similarly stated that year that it was the only general-interest survivor of about 150 consumer-computing magazines published in 1983. [28]

Some computer magazines in the 1980s and 1990s were issued only on disk (or cassette tape, or CD-ROM) with no printed counterpart; such publications are collectively (though somewhat inaccurately) known as disk magazines and are listed separately.

1990s

In some ways the heyday of printed computer magazines was a period during the 1990s, in which a large number of computer manufacturers took out advertisements in computer magazines, so they became quite thick and could afford to carry quite a number of articles in each issue, ( Computer Shopper was a good example of this trend). Some printed computer magazines used to include covermount floppy disks, CDs, or other media as inserts; they typically contained software, demos, and electronic versions of the print issue.

2000s–2010s

However, with the rise in popularity of the Internet, many computer magazines went bankrupt or transitioned to an online-only existence. Exceptions include Wired , which is more of a technology magazine than a computer magazine.

List of computer magazines

Notable regular contributors to print computer magazines

NameOccupationMagazines (years of regular contributions)
Flag of the United States.svg Ken Arnold Programmer Unix Review (1980s–1990s)
Flag of the United Kingdom.svg Charlie Brooker TV comedian, TV reviewer, newspaper columnist PC Zone (1990s)
Flag of the United States.svg Orson Scott Card Science fiction author Ahoy! , Compute!
Flag of the United Kingdom.svg Chris Crawford Game designer BYTE , Computer Gaming World
Flag of the United States.svg Pamela Jones Paralegal, legal blogger Linux User , others
Flag of the United Kingdom.svg Stan Kelly-Bootle Writer, consultant, programmer, songwriter UNIX Review (1984–2000), OS/2 Magazine, Software Development
Flag of the United States.svg Nicholas Negroponte Professor, investor Wired magazine (1993–1998)
Flag of the United States.svg Jerry Pournelle Science fiction author BYTE (1980–2006)
Flag of the United Kingdom.svg Rhianna Pratchett Game scriptwriter, journalist PC Zone
Flag of the United States.svg Bruce Schneier Security specialist, writer, cryptographer Wired magazine
Flag of the United Kingdom.svg Charles Stross Science fiction and fantasy author Computer Shopper (UK magazine) (1994–2004)
Flag of the United States.svg Don Lancaster Writer, consultant, programmerDr. Dobb's Journal, Byte, etc.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ In 1955, the "Automatic Computing Machinery" column was removed, but the full-length articles about computers still continued to appear with varying frequency.
  2. ↑ Alternative title: Roster of Organizations in the Computing Machinery Field.
  3. ↑ First published in 1952, regular publication started in 1964 (Publications in computing: an informal review, p. 494).

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References

  1. 1 2 Weiss, Eric A. (1972-07-01). "Publications in computing: an informal review". Communications of the ACM. 15 (7): 491–497. doi: 10.1145/361454.361456 . ISSN   0001-0782. S2CID   27504743.
  2. ↑ "Cyber Brief: Digital Computer Newsletter — 1949–1968 | National Security Archive". nsarchive.gwu.edu. Retrieved 25 December 2021.
  3. 1 2 Sternadori, Miglena; Holmes, Tim (2020). The Handbook of Magazine Studies. John Wiley & Sons. p. 7. ISBN   978-1-119-15152-4.
  4. ↑ The Computing Machinery Field. Edmund C. Berkeley and Associates. 1953. p. 7.
  5. ↑ Roster of Organizations in the Field of Automatic Computing Machinery 1952-07-20: Vol 1 Iss 3. Internet Archive. Berkeley Enterprises. 1952-07-20.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  6. ↑ "Computers and People". Berkeley Enterprises. 1957: 111.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  7. ↑ "Computer Art Contest". compArt daDA. Retrieved 2023-06-14.
  8. ↑ The BITSAVERS.ORG Documents Library: Computers and Automation Journal
  9. ↑ computersAndAutomation :: Computer Census 1962-74. 1962–1974.
  10. ↑ "AFIPS conference proceedings". onesearch.library.uwa.edu.au. Retrieved 2023-06-14.
  11. ↑ "ACM-NATIONAL-CONFERENCE Conference - Proceedings". ACM Digital Library. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
  12. ↑ Limited, National Computing Centre (1970). A World List of Computer Periodicals. National Computing Centre. p. 40. ISBN   978-0-85012-029-5.
  13. ↑ Lost Media Wiki article containing U.S Copyright Office catalog scans
  14. ↑ Computing News Issue #216 from March 1st, 1962
  15. ↑ Computing News Issue #217 from March 15th, 1962
  16. ↑ Amateur Computer Society newsletter, 1966-1976
  17. ↑ "Amateur Computer Society Newsletter | 102654910 | Computer History Museum". www.computerhistory.org. Claims to be "the first hobby-computer publication in the world."
  18. 1 2 Berg, Eric N. (8 September 1984). "The Computer Magazine Glut". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 3 July 2017.
  19. ↑ "Boom in Computer Magazines". The New York Times. 9 November 1983. Retrieved 25 February 2011.
  20. ↑ Lock, Robert (December 1983). "Editor's Notes". Compute!. p. 6.
  21. ↑ Bartimo, Jim (10 December 1984). "Magazines Woo Users". InfoWorld. pp. 35–36. Retrieved 14 March 2011.
  22. ↑ Bartimo, Jim (4 June 1984). "Computer Magazines: What see isn't what you always get". InfoWorld. pp. 54–56. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  23. ↑ Gutman, Dan (December 1987). "The Fall And Rise Of Computer Games". Compute!'s Apple Applications. p. 64. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
  24. ↑ Bisson, Gigi (May 1986). "Antic Then & Now". Antic. pp. 16–23. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  25. ↑ Maher, Jimmy (28 July 2013). "A Computer for Every Home?". The Digital Antiquarian. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
  26. ↑ Lock, Robert C. (January 1986). "Editor's Notes". Compute's Gazette. p. 6.
  27. ↑ Sipe, Russell (August 1988). "The Greatest Story Ever Told". Computer Gaming World. p. 6.
  28. ↑ Mansfield, Richard (January 1988). "Editor's Notes". Compute!. p. 6. Retrieved 10 November 2013.
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