A Few Good Magazines From the 70s and 80s(www.bi6.us)
62 pointsby OhMeadhbh11 hours ago7 comments
  • helsinkiandrew2 hours ago
    The death of Byte magazine cover artist Robert Tinney, was discussed here just a couple of months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46987425
  • defrost10 hours ago
    Dr. Dobbs Journal of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia was my goto, I boot strapped my first C compiler from Ron Cain's Small-C code.

    * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-C

    * https://github.com/trcwm/smallc_v1

    • SpaceNoodled8 hours ago
      I remember feeling like a professional my first time reading an issue Dr. Dobb's I got at an airport on the '90s.
      • scorpionfeet6 hours ago
        My first article was published in Dr Dobb’s in 1992!
  • anonymousiam5 hours ago
    DDJ was my favorite of those mentioned. Byte was #2. The rest were a pass for me. After DDJ called it quits, they released a CDR containing an archive of all issues, which I still have. Much of the content was timeless.
  • canucker20165 hours ago
    Kilobaud Computing had died out.

    Byte and Dr Drobbs had the odd technical article but gone mostly mainstream by the 80s.

    But one of my classmates showed me an issue of Hardcore Computist (renamed Computist) and I was hooked.

    Technical knowledge about circumventing copy-protected software interspersed with cracks for various software programs.

    see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computist

    back issues on archive.org at https://archive.org/search?query=Hardcore+Computist

  • TuringNYC10 hours ago
    I thought of OMNI before anything and was pleased to find it on the article :-)
    • OhMeadhbh9 hours ago
      Yeah. It was randomly happening upon OMNI on the Internet Archive that inspired the article. What a delightful magazine!
    • greenbit6 hours ago
      All those HR Giger artworks, yes, Omni had style
    • gedy7 hours ago
      That was a favorite of mine hands down. Anyone have suggestions on where to access all/most issues?
    • wileydragonfly8 hours ago
      Exact same experience here.
  • watersb10 hours ago
    The article states that "Playboy" magazine creators started "Omni", but I'm almost certain it was "Penthouse".

    I would describe both Playboy and Penthouse as primarily pornography. As such, they were both wildly popular in the 1970s and early 1980s.

    Omni was not that. I had a subscription to Omni from the first issue in 1978 until about 1983. Pop science, science fiction, fantasy art, interviews and features on space exploration policy... and junk science, UFOs, psychic powers, cults. News of the wierd.

    • SoftTalker6 hours ago
      Well, agreed that people didn't really buy Playboy or Penthouse for the articles. But it was pretty tame compared to PornHub and other online porn of today. You'd see breasts, maybe some pubic hair, but not much more, particulary in Playboy. Hustler was more explicit but none of them showed actual sex; you'd have to go to an "adult" bookstore or theater to find that.
      • jdswain2 hours ago
        I did. The only Playboy magazine I ever bought contained an interview with Steve Jobs. Unfortunately I lent it to a friend and never got it back.
    • EarlKing9 hours ago
      > Playboy Magazine in the 50s and 60s had a reputation for, among other things, reviewing hi-fi systems, pop albums and surprisingly good fiction. Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione must have wanted some of the tech + fiction market because he and his wife Kathy Keeton launched Omni Magazine in 1978.

      Either that got ninja-edited in the 8 minutes since you posted that comment, or you misread that paragraph.

      • watersb6 hours ago
        As expected, I misread the paragraph.
  • shiroiuma4 hours ago
    Another magazine I think they should have mentioned: "Radio-Electronics".