1975 Christmas issue of Byte

This is the fourth-ever issue of Byte magazine, a home computer magazine that was published from September 1975 until July 1998. 

In the late 1980s, I would occasionally buy Byte on the newstand, but more often I read the new issues in the Strath Haven High School library during study hall. The magazine was an unfathomable moneymaker during its heyday. A September 8, 1984, article in The New York Times headlined "The Computer Magazine Glut" notes that the October 1984 issue of Byte was slated to have 300 pages of advertisements, at an average price of $6,000 per page. (More than $17,000 per page in today's dollars.)

It was smaller at the start, of course. This December 1975 issue was 112 pages, with a healthy number of advertising pages. It was the first Christmas issue, and it features a cover illustration by Robert Tinney that, as the magazine notes, "illustrates the impact of these new toys upon traditional relationships." 

How right they were.

It was a different computer era back then. It was an expensive hobby and most enthusiasts needed to have significant knowledge and skills to build their own machines. This $1.50 magazine was catering to that demographic. Here are some of the article titles, which may sound like Greek to a modern generation that knows nothing about the innards of its laptops and iPhones.

• Powerless IC Test Clip
• LIFE Line 3
• 
  Build a 6800 System with This Kit
• Can Your Computer Tell Time?
• Photographic notes on Prototype Construction
• What This Country Needs Is a Good 8-Bit High Level Language
• The Software Vaccum
• Logic Probes — Hardware Bug Chasers
• What Is a Character?
• Flip Flops Exposed
• Read Only Memory Technology
• The HP-65: World's Smallest Computer
• Assembling an Altair 8800

The advertisements are similarly byzantine. They contain bold pitches such as:

• "Use Our Hardware Assemblers!"
• "Hi-Speed Static RAM 2602-1 475ns"
• "Inexpensive, Sophisticated Mass Storage"
• "Build Your Own Advanced Terminal"
• "Christmas Time Payment Plan, 1K Altair for Just $68 a Month!"
• "Ten Reasons to Choose CMR Memory Card"
• "16K Memory Kit Less Than 5.5¢/Word"
• "Uses Low Power Schottky TTL"
• "Epoxy Boards with Plated Thru Holes"
• "Jump Program 16K Address Slot"
• "TO-92 Voltage Regulators"

And this might be my favorite: 

Seasons Greetings

WHAT SINGLE ELECTRONIC MACHINE CAN BE USED TO PERFORM/CONTROL ALL THE FOLLOWING TYPES OF SERVICES?

• Send morse code
• Control repeater stations
• Operate as a calculator
• Receive/send/buffer data between a wide variety of communication devices
• Monitor instruments
• Control machines
• Sort/compile data
• Test other devices
• Play games

the SCELBI-8B MINI-COMPUTER CAN!

Scelbi 

Finally, if all that text has you scratching your head, that's nothing. This is what most of the article pages in this issue of Byte looked like:

Of course, many of the "computer nerds" who understood all of this stuff back in the 1970s were in a fantastic position for lucrative careers, or even to found billion-dollar companies that now sell us all those nifty devices that we love but don't understand one thing about.

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