Every now and then I read books about different aspects of computer history. Good books written on the topic obviously heavily rely on original sources and interviews and make a good plot and summary out of it. To dig deeper on specific aspects requires to get hold of the original sources. Fortunately, quite some of them are available online now, such as for example scanned originals of 'Byte' magazine, that covered 'microcomputer' topics in great depth and technical detail from 1975 to 1998.
One issue I recently took a closer look at was from August 1985, i.e. from exactly 30 years ago, as it contains a preview of the upcoming Amiga 1000. What I find very interesting reading original sources is how new developments at the time were perceived at the time and how they compare with existing technology. I had to smile, for example when comparing the graphics and multitasking capabilities the Amiga introduced to Jerry Pournelle's ravings in the same issue of the magazine about a program that 'can have WordStar, DOS, and Lotus 1-2-3 running all at the same time that would otherwise have only single-tasked on his text based Zenth ZP-150 IBM-PC clone.
Obviously that's just one of millions of stories to be discovered. For your own enjoyment, head over to Archive.org and begin your own journey through computer (and other) history 🙂
That link to Archive.org in the last sentence is broken somehow, can you fix that?
Done, thanks!
I was a Byte reader — I had many of original magazines during the 1980s. It was SO awesome to read and experience and live through. The Amiga was such an awesome platform — and did influence me a lot. That particular issue, I had!
Circuit Cellar was also one of my fav sections.
I got rid of all those magazines tho a number of years ago 🙁