Byte (magazine)

[1] Byte started in 1975, shortly after the first personal computers appeared as kits advertised in the back of electronics magazines.

The associated website continued to draw 600,000 page views a month, prompting the owners to re-open the magazine in a pure online format in 1999.

The Altair 8800 was announced in January 1975, sparking off intense interest among those working technical fields, including the amateur radio market.

This led Green to begin plans for a magazine dedicated to the newly emerging microcomputer market.

Green's editorial column in the August 1975 issue of 73 started with this item: The response to computer-type articles in 73 has been so enthusiastic that we here in Peterborough got carried away.

On May 25th we made a deal with the publisher of a small (400 circulation) computer hobby magazine to take over as editor of a new publication which would start in August ...

Helmers wrote to another hobbyist newsletter, Micro-8 Computer User Group Newsletter, and described his new job as editor of Byte magazine: I got a note in the mail about two weeks ago from Wayne Green, publisher of '73 Magazine' essentially saying hello and why don't you come up and talk a bit.

The net result of a follow up is the decision to create BYTE magazine using the facilities of Green Publishing Inc.

He had recently gotten back together with his ex-wife, Virginia Londner Green, who had been listed as the business manager of 73 Inc. since December 1974.

by Hal Chamberlin, Write Your Own Assembler by Dan Fylstra and Serial Interface by Don Lancaster.

Among the more important articles was the introduction of the Kansas City standard for storing data on cassette tape, which was used by most machines of the era.

[citation needed] Significant articles in this period included the insertion of floppy disk drives into S-100 computers, publication of source code for various computer languages (Tiny C, BASIC, assemblers), and coverage of the first microcomputer operating system, CP/M.

One day in November 1975 Green came back to the office and found that the Byte magazine staff had moved out and taken the January issue with them.

"[13] Green was not happy about losing Byte and decided to start a new magazine called Kilobyte.

He announced these intentions early, and advertised the upcoming magazine in 73, with the goal of shipping the first issue in December 1976 (the January 1977 edition).

In April 1979, owner/publisher Virginia Williamson (née Londner Green) sold Byte to McGraw-Hill.

At the time, Byte's paid circulation was 156,000 readers, making it second only to Business Week in the McGraw-Hill's technology magazine portfolio.

It gradually de-emphasized the do-it-yourself electronics and software articles, and began running product reviews.

[19] Starting with the December 1975 issue through September 1990, Byte covers often featured the artwork of Robert Tinney.

It acquired the domain name byte.com and began to host discussion boards and post selected editorial content.

In January 2012 American science fiction and horror author F. Paul Wilson began writing for byte.com, mostly in the persona of his best-known character Repairman Jack.

Byte leased an office for one of their West Coast Branch operations in this building in Costa Mesa, California (pictured in 2022).