Computer magazine
Computer magazines are about
History
1940s–1950s
Sources:[1].
- Mathematics of Computation established in 1943, articles about computers began to appear from 1946 (Volume 2, Number 15) to the end of 1954.[note 1] Scientific journal.
- Digital Computer Newsletter,[2] (1949–1968), founded by Albert Eugene Smith.
- Computers and People, (1951–1988[3]), was arguably the first computer magazine. It began as Roster of Organizations in the Field of Automatic Computing Machinery (1951–1952),[4][5][note 2] and then The Computing Machinery Field (1952–1953).[6] It was published by Edmund Berkeley. Computers and Automation held the first Computer Art Contest in 1963[7] and maintained a bibliography on computer art starting in 1966.[8] It also included a monthly estimated census of all installed computer systems starting in 1962.[9] In 1973 name changed to Computers and Automation and People, and finally in 1975 to Computers and People.[3]
- AFIPS conference proceedings[10] (AFIPS Joint Computer Conferences) (1952–1987).
- ACM National Conference proceedings (Proceedings of National Meetings) (1952, 1956–1987, 1997)[11][note 3][1]
- IEEE Transactions on Computers from 1952, scientific journal.
- Computing News (1953–1963[12]), was an early computer magazine produced by Jackson W. Granholm out of Thousand Oaks, California. The first documented copyright was applied for on September 1, 1954, for issue #36. The magazine was released on the 1st and 15th of each month, which places issue #1 at March 15, 1953. The last documented release was issue #217 on March 15, 1962.[13][14][15]
- Journal of the ACM from 1954, scientific journal.
- Datamation from 1957, was another early computer and data processing magazine. It is still being published as an e-publication on the Internet. Futurist Donald Prell was its founder.
- Information and Computation from 1957, scientific journal.
- IBM Journal of Research and Development from 1957, scientific journal.
- Communications of the ACM from 1958, mix of science magazine, trade magazine, and a scientific journal
- The Computer Journal from 1958, scientific journal.
1960s–1970s
- ACS Newsletter (1966–1976), Amateur Computer Society newsletter.[16][17]
- Computerworld (1967)
- People's Computer Company Newsletter(1972–1981)
- Amateur Computer Club Newsletter (ACCN; 1973–)
- Dr. Dobb's Journal (1976–2014) was the first microcomputer magazine to focus on software, rather than hardware.
1980s
1980s computer magazines skewed their content towards the
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,
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
2000s–2010s
However, with the rise in popularity of the
List of computer magazines
Notable regular contributors to print computer magazines
| Name | Occupation | Magazines (years of regular contributions) |
|---|---|---|
 Ken Arnold
|
Programmer | Unix Review (1980s–1990s)
|
 Charlie Brooker
|
TV comedian, TV reviewer, newspaper columnist | PC Zone (1990s) |
| Orson Scott Card
|
Science fiction author | Ahoy!, Compute! |
| Chris Crawford
|
Game designer | BYTE, Computer Gaming World
|
| Pamela Jones
|
Paralegal, legal blogger | Linux User, others |
| Stan Kelly-Bootle
|
Writer, consultant, programmer, songwriter | UNIX Review (1984–2000), OS/2 Magazine, Software Development |
| Nicholas Negroponte
|
Professor, investor | Wired magazine (1993–1998)
|
| Jerry Pournelle
|
Science fiction author | BYTE (1980–2006)
|
| Rhianna Pratchett
|
Game scriptwriter, journalist | PC Zone |
| Bruce Schneier
|
Security specialist, writer, cryptographer | Wired magazine
|
| Charles Stross
|
Science fiction and fantasy author | Computer Shopper (UK magazine) (1994–2004) |
| Don Lancaster
|
Writer, consultant, programmer | Dr. Dobb's Journal, Byte, etc. |
See also
Notes
- ^ In 1955, the "Automatic Computing Machinery" column was removed, but the full-length articles about computers still continued to appear with varying frequency.
- ^ Alternative title: Roster of Organizations in the Computing Machinery Field.
- ^ First published in 1952, regular publication started in 1964 (Publications in computing: an informal review, p. 494).
References
- ^ S2CID 27504743.
- ^ "Cyber Brief: Digital Computer Newsletter — 1949–1968 | National Security Archive". nsarchive.gwu.edu. Retrieved 25 December 2021.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-119-15152-4.
- ^ The Computing Machinery Field. Edmund C. Berkeley and Associates. 1953. p. 7.
- ^ 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) - ^ "Computers and People". Berkeley Enterprises. 1957: 111.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ "Computer Art Contest". compArt daDA. Retrieved 2023-06-14.
- ^ The BITSAVERS.ORG Documents Library: Computers and Automation Journal
- ^ computersAndAutomation :: Computer Census 1962-74. 1962–1974.
- ^ "AFIPS conference proceedings". onesearch.library.uwa.edu.au. Retrieved 2023-06-14.
- ^ "ACM-NATIONAL-CONFERENCE Conference - Proceedings". ACM Digital Library. Retrieved 2023-06-28.
- ISBN 978-0-85012-029-5.
- ^ Lost Media Wiki article containing U.S Copyright Office catalog scans
- ^ Computing News Issue #216 from March 1st, 1962
- ^ Computing News Issue #217 from March 15th, 1962
- ^ Amateur Computer Society newsletter, 1966-1976
- ^ "Amateur Computer Society Newsletter | 102654910 | Computer History Museum". www.computerhistory.org.
Claims to be "the first hobby-computer publication in the world."
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 3 July 2017.
- ^ "Boom in Computer Magazines". The New York Times. 9 November 1983. Retrieved 25 February 2011.
- ^ Lock, Robert (December 1983). "Editor's Notes". Compute!. p. 6.
- ^ Bartimo, Jim (10 December 1984). "Magazines Woo Users". InfoWorld. pp. 35–36. Retrieved 14 March 2011.
- ^ Bartimo, Jim (4 June 1984). "Computer Magazines: What see isn't what you always get". InfoWorld. pp. 54–56. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
- ^ Gutman, Dan (December 1987). "The Fall And Rise Of Computer Games". Compute!'s Apple Applications. p. 64. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
- ^ Bisson, Gigi (May 1986). "Antic Then & Now". Antic. pp. 16–23. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
- ^ Maher, Jimmy (28 July 2013). "A Computer for Every Home?". The Digital Antiquarian. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
- ^ Lock, Robert C. (January 1986). "Editor's Notes". Compute's Gazette. p. 6.
- ^ Sipe, Russell (August 1988). "The Greatest Story Ever Told". Computer Gaming World. p. 6.
- ^ Mansfield, Richard (January 1988). "Editor's Notes". Compute!. p. 6. Retrieved 10 November 2013.