Source: Byte – February 1989

Byte was one of the better computer magazines available. It also tended to have a slightly more technical slant than the average PC magazine. It covered a variety of systems but gradually became more PC oriented towards the latter part of its life. The first issue of Byte was published all the way back in 1975 and the final issue was the July 1998 issue. The February 1989 issue weighed in at over 380 pages and includes:

Products in Perspective

• What’s New – A look at new products including the Crayon 386 20/20 SP, a ruggedized computer for industrial environments ($7495); Chorus Transputer box for Macintosh networks ($25,000); the VIP SX386 tower PC from ALR that features a 16-MHz 386 which is upgradeable to a 20-MHz 386 ($2395); A small 8-ounce 20 MB hard drive for $1195; a data acquisition board for the Mac SE ($595 + $95 for the driver + $595 for LabView software); Sony 68030 based Unix workstation ($13,900-$54,200 depending on specs); Toshiba T5100 386-based portable Unix workstation ($7199-$8750); The Headstart II Plus (8088-1 based, $2295) and Headstart III (80286 based, $2995) and lots more.

• Short Takes – Brief hands-on views of new products including the MegaMate (external 3.5″ disk drive for $349), Unix Tools for DOS (including MKS Make, Lex and Yacc), Wordbench (word processor with tools for writers, $189), Data Sentry (hardware based copy protection, $125), and Sourcer (a disassembler, $99.95).

• Paradox 3: Neither Enigma nor Riddle – A first look at an upgrade to Borland’s DBMS package.

• Cover Story: The Mac SE Takes Off – A first look at the Mac SE/30 which features a 68030 CPU, 68882 FPU. You could get the 2 MB RAM/40 MB hard drive model fro $5069 or the 4 MB RAM/80 MB hard drive model for $6369.

• Product Focus: Smoothing Out C – Optimization techniques for C compilers and a comparison of several compilers including Borland Turbo C Professional 2.0, Manx Aztec C86 Commercial 4.1d, MetaWare high C 286 1.4, Microsoft C 5.1, Watcom C 6.5, and Zortech C 1.07.

• A Pair of Sophisticated Laptops – Reviews of two new laptops including the Zenith SupersPort 286 featuring an 80C286 CPU running at 6 or 12 MHz, 1 MB RAM, one 1.44-MB 3.5″ floppy drive; 20 or 40 MB hard drive, and more for $4999-$5599 and the Mitsubishi MP-286L featuring an 80286 running at 8 or 12 MHz, 640K RAM, one or two 1.44-MB 3.5″ floppy drives, 20 MB hard drive, and more for $3195-$5395.

• A PS/2 in Channel Only – A review of the Tandy 5000 MC, Tandy’s PS/2 clone…or at least it used the Micro Channel bus. It features a 20-MHz 80386, 2 MB of RAM, 1.44-MB 3.5″ floppy drive, 80 MB hard drive, and more starting at $4999.

• Three Assemblers for MS-DOS – A review and comparison of three assemblers for DOS including TASM, OPTASM and MASM.

• Full Impact – A review of an upgrade to this spreadsheet software from Ashton-Tate ($395).

• dBASE IV Arrives – A review of this DBMS package that really set the standard for years to come ($795 Standard Edition, $1295 Developer’s Edition).

Expert Advice

• Computing at Chaos Manor: Ready Line Overload – A look at new products shown at COMDEX, including Intel’s Visual Edge print-enhancement system, Logic Gem (a software package for turning flow charts into code), DESQview 386 (a popular DOS multitasking system), Norton Utilities 4.5, ConvertUnits (unit conversion program), and more.

• Applications Plus: New Friends and Old – A look at the evolution of integrated software, the Canon Cat printer, Framework III database software, and The Perfect Career…software that is supposed to help you identify the ideal career for you.

• Down to Business: Getting into Bigger LANs – A look at strategies to create larger local area networks.

• Macinations: Hey Apple, I Need a Laptop – Apple had yet to release an official Mac based laptop though this author really wanted one. Apparently there were third party companies who hacked such things together and they were planning something called the WalkMac SE that was based on the Mac SE motherboard and featured a backlit LCD screen and rechargeable battery for $5449.

• OS/2 Notebook: Electing the PM – Requirements for running OS/2 with Presentation Manager. Requirements include a 80286 or 80386 CPU, OS/2 friendly BIOS, IBM PC AT-type hard disk controller, 1.2 or 1.44 MB floppy drive, 60 MB hard drive, EGA or VGA graphics, and at least 2.6 MB RAM. This article examines each of these requirements (and others) in more detail.

• COM1: The ABCs of X, Y, and XModem – A comparison of various modem file transfer protocols. By the time I started calling BBSes, ZMODEM was the standard though there was at least one more obscure protocol that allowed simultaneous uploads and downloads that I used sometimes…the name escapes me at the moment.

In Depth

• Introduction: Personal Workstations – The line between professional workstations and high-end PCs starts to blur.

• Two Worlds Converge – A low-end workstation or high-end PC could be considered basically the same thing. A personal workstation. This article lists three main architectures: VME, Multi-Bus and the IBM PC AT bus. Perhaps the key to the “workstation” label is a high res display and networking capabilities.

• The Current Crop – A look at existing professional workstations as well as building your own. Pre-built workstations mentioned include the Apollo DN3000, Sun-3/50, NeXT, Sun386i/150, Sun-3/60, Apollo DN3500, Sun 386i/250, SGI Personal Iris, Sun-4/110, and Apollo DN4500. They range in price from $4990 to $18990. The author’s self built workstation consists of an ALR 386/220 with 20 MHz 80386, and 3 MB of RAM running Unix System V 3.0.

• Worth the RISC – An overview or RISC technology including the CPUs available now.

• How Fast Is Fast? – Techniques for measuring performance and how different architectures produce speed in different ways.

• Art + 2 Years = Science – A look at the state of the art in computer graphics and some of the products available.

• Networking with Unix – A look at Unix networking including RFS (Remote File System) and NFS (Network File System).

Features

• Digital Paper – A look at the technology behind write-once optical media that can store up to a gigabyte of data on floppy disk sized cartridges.

• Turbo Pascal Windowing System – Pascal’s windowing system, called TWindows, lets you add windows to the application programs you write. This article includes examples and other techinical details.

• Under the Hood: Hard Disk Interfaces – An overview and techinical comparison of the various hard disk interface standards including ST506, RLL, Advanced and Enhanced RLL, ESDI, SMD, and SCSI.

• Some Assembly Requires: Trees ‘n Keys, Part 2 – A continuation of a discussion of the B-tree data structure from the previous month.

Departments

• Editorial: The End of Application Software – IBM and Microsoft start including more application features in to OS/2 and Windows.

• Microbytes – Highlights of new developments in the computer industry including new embedded processors from Intel and AMD, analog emulation of the nervous system, flexible superconductors, and much more.

• Letters – Letters from readers about the high cost of RAM, getting started on BIX, MIX, and Compuserve, the origin of various computer terms, and more.

• Chaos Manor Mail – Using PC-MOS/386 and Nota Bene (a word processor).

• Ask BYTE – Questions answered about the Mindset computer, installing a floppy drive, FFT algorithms, upgrading the BIOS of an original IBM PC, interface cables, and more.

• Book Reviews – Reviews of No Way: The Nature of the Impossible, Programmer’s Guide to OS/2, Better Scientific and Technical Writing, C Traps and Pitfalls, and What Do You Care What Other People Think?

…and more!