Death of the Computer Magazine

I heard on a tech podcast I listen to that the last two personal computing magazines have ceased publication in print. All of the computer magazines that are still around are online only.

The era of paper computer publications in the USA, which began in the 1940-50s of the last century, is coming to an end. The April 2023 issues of Maximum PC and MacLife magazines will be the last to appear in paper. From now on, both will exist in digital format. - source : The Technologizer

In the formative days of personal computers, we lived for the next issue of Byte, PC World, Computer Shopper and InfoWorld.

Byte was one of the geekiest magazines to ever come out. It discussed the attributes of computer busses, the most minute features of WordStar, and anything else you could think of.

Its back pages were filled with tiny display ads for even tinier start-up computer companies. Often their biggest asset was hope, and they were launched using the cash their recent college grad founders found in their graduation cards. It would be interesting to research those companies and see which ones still survive either on their own, or long ago absorbed into a larger company.

Microsoft ran their first ad in December of 1975, before they were even a year old, and while they were still based in New Mexico.

To me the best feature was “Computing at Chaos Manor”, written by noted science fiction author Jerry Pournelle. He was Byte’s normal user, and he had monthly struggles worthy of Job.

Recall how the first automobile owners had to be mechanics as well as drivers since cars were not perfected as of yet? Same with early computers. Keeping them running took an enormous amount of tweaking, cable swapping, memory swapping and patience and persistence, oh so much patience and persistence. Jerry’s columns talked about his constant struggles to keep his machines humming so he could write his books on them. He is credited by some as the first person to write a novel on a personal computer.

It was exciting to know others struggled, and succeeded as I did. Just like those early drivers/’mechanics helped debug cars for the masses, we computer owners in the late 70’s and 80s did the same for future computer users.

Infoworld was the newspaper of the industry, chronicling the starting of yet another company. I remember reading about an engineering company releasing its internal project management software as a product. I recalled that article again a few years later when I found myself working for them.

Then there was Computer Shopper, a massively thick monthly almost comical in its size and weight.

The publisher of PC World had Mac World ready to go on the day the Mac was released in January of 1984, a time I recall warmly.

Magazines struggle today; not only computer magazines, but Time, Newsweek, Life, even the venerable National Geographic. Some still survive, but it is amazing, and alarming how fast the internet has taken our interest in them away.