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Show HN: A zoomable, searchable archive of BYTE magazine

(byte.tsundoku.io)
401 points chromy | 1 comments | 26 Aug 25 15:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.211s | source

A while ago I was looking for information on a obscure and short lived British computer.

I found an article[1] in the archives of BYTE magazine[2] - and was captivated immediately by the tech adverts of bygone eras.

This led to a long side project to be able to see all 100k pages of BYTE in a single searchable place.

[1]: https://byte.tsundoku.io/#198502-381

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17683184

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fsiefken ◴[26 Aug 25 17:22 UTC] No.45029585[source]▶
Thank you for doing this, it also has a nice microform feel when browsing. I remember that in the pre internet days I went to the library to find the microfiche in the drawer en folder of the newspaper I wanted to read. I forgot how I loaded it into the machine, but perhaps it was easier then putting a usb stick in a computer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microform https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6P9FhSkd0I

I wonder what's the reason for the decline in length over the years and why the peak size years seem to be '82-'83.

As an image format alternative, there's avif and webp, but png has the advantage it was in existence during in the lasts BYTE years (1996-1998). "The full specification of PNG was released under the approval of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on 1 October 1996, and later as RFC 2083 on 15 January 1997"

The funny thing is, when I search I can't find mention of the GIF/PNG discussions or PNG introduction, while I do find mention of things like WebNFS, OLiVR/VDOLive (wavelet video) and FIF (fractal image format). Perhaps it was out of scope?

replies(3): >>45031482 #>>45031621 #>>45032022 #
1. mwexler ◴[26 Aug 25 19:51 UTC] No.45031482[source]▶
82-83 was the peak of hobbyist computing where articles and ads were in-between components and software.

As the tech improved, it moved into "appliance" mode of being a box you plug in, not a heathkit you assemble. By 86, Gateway and Dell and other packagers sold the "box". As demand shifted, all the mags shrunk from phone-book proportions (PC Mag, Compute, SoftDisk, etc etc). Some survived longer as business software fought for the office and marketing moved to peripherals (mice, monitors, printers) but things got anemic by the 90s.