Source: Byte – March 1981

Computer magazines have been around for a really long time. Or may I should say ‘were’ at this point as you can find no general computer magazines on the shelf these days. Anyway, Byte was first published starting in 1975. This issue is from March 1981 which was still roughly six months before the IBM PC was introduced. There were still plenty of home computers from Commodore, Atari, Apple and others as well as numerous CP/M based machines and other unique computers. This issue weighs in at almost 400 pages and includes:

Features

• Structured Programming and Structured Flowcharts – An introduction to structured programming which could be accomplished in virtually any language with a goto statement.

• Build the Disk-80: Memory Expansion and Floppy-Disk Control – A do-it-yourself hardware project in which you build an expansion interface for the TRS-80 model I that includes both expanded memory (up to 32K) and a floppy disk controller.

• Three-Dimensional Computer Graphics, Part 1 – The part in a series on generating 3D polygonal graphics. Mostly this goes over the math involved.

• What is Good Documentation? – A guide to producing good hardware and software documentation with minimal jargon.

• A Beginner’s Guide to Spectral Analysis, Part 2 – Part 1 introduced ideas behind the Fourier transform. This part extends those ideas into two-dimensional space. Includes examples in 6502 machine-language.

• A Simple Approach to Data Smoothing – Techniques to smooth out statistical fluctuations in data in order to find underlying trends.

• The New Literacy: Programming Languages as Languages – A comparison of computer/programming languages vs. human languages.

• Computer Music: A Design Tutorial – This article starts out by saying “The computational power necessary to synthesize high-quality, polyphonic computer music in real time exceeds the resources of the currently available microprocessors.” How far we have come. This article covers one approach to frequency synthesis.

Reviews

• The Micro Matrix Photopoint Light Pen – Light pens were once a popular way to interface with a computer. Ultimately, the mouse took over that roll. This review looks at one such light pen and some software that supports it.

• What’s Inside Radio Shack’s Color Computer? – A detailed and technical look at the then new Tandy Color Computer. The Color Computer featured the partially 16-bit MC6809E CPU and up to 16K. While Radio Shack supported the Color Computer for more than a decade, it never really gained the popularity of machines like the Apple II, Atari 400/800, Commodore 64, VIC-20, etc. There are no good sales numbers but best guess seems to be that about 500,000 units were sold all the CoCo models combined. I had a neighbor that had a Coco 3 back in the day.

Nucleus

• Editorial: Is This Really Necessary? – An editorial on design techniques.

• Letters – Letters from readers about technical writing, Intel’s educational products, SuperBrain upgrade costs, muSIMP for the TRS-80 Model I, and more.

• Programming Quickies – Short BASIC programs for computing the determinant of a Matrix and displaying constellations.

• Languages Forum: A Coding Sheet for FORTH – A form for creating a graphical representation of the stack in FORTH.

• Byte’s Bits – News bits including an IEEE study on terminals, a computer camp for kids 10-18, an online service for the TI-99/4, research for using computers to aid the handicapped, and more.

• Technical Forum – A BASIC program that converts object code to data statements; a comparison of addition and subtraction operations between the 1802 and Z-80 processors; and a design for a simple video switch.

• Desk-Top Wonders: Hunt the Wumpus with Your HP-41C – A type in version of this popular (at the time) game for the HP-41C programmable calculator.

• System Notes: Software Addressing Modes for the 8080 – Various ways of addressing memory on the 8080 processor.

• Bytelines – The latest personal computer related news including a new software copyright law, a new 68000 S-100 bus based computer, a 5 Megabyte hard drive for under $2000, sales of Japanese made computers drop sharply in the U.S., wristwatch-sized computer proposed, the Cray-1 and CDC Cyber 205 top the list of the worlds fastest computers, work begins on plasma and LCD based flat panel displays, experimental robot destroys itself at the University of Florida, Xerox introduces first Ethernet system, IBM opens retail stores, ex-employee fined $50,000 for stealing his former employers software and using it in a competing business, Federal auditors discover over 200 government employees using computers at the Sandia Nuclear Weapons Research Center for things like playing games, and much more.

• Ask Byte – Questions answered about building a modem, home automation with the X-10, upper and lower-case letters on the TRS-80 Model II, and more.

• What’s New? – A look at new products including an 8088-based board for the S-100 bus; a new microcomputer from DTC featuring 64K RAM, an 8085A-1 CPU, and more; the IMP2-Apple printer designed for the Apple II; the Model 7728 Centronics Printer Interface for the Apple II; a new family of 3.19 to 11.5 megabyte 5-inch hard drives from Tandon; the new VIC-20 computer from Commodore; and more.

…and more!