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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: 0.218s | 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

Show context
wkjagt ◴[26 Aug 25 17:02 UTC] No.45029315[source]▶
BYTE is awesome. And this project is awesome and really well done. I miss the BYTE days. Is there a modern day equivalent?
replies(2): >>45029497 #>>45029676 #
ghaff ◴[26 Aug 25 17:30 UTC] No.45029676[source]▶
Computing sort of got too big. Early on, Byte could be eclectic with lots of different architectural discussions and hardware like circuit cellar. But from my perspective they got to a point where they were, for lack of a better word, pretty random. I was at an event where they were trying to reboot sometime in the 2000s but not sure what the market was for a popular computing magazine trying to cover all the bases at that point.
replies(1): >>45029956 #
pklausler ◴[26 Aug 25 17:52 UTC] No.45029956[source]▶
BYTE was best before Jerry Pournelle showed up.
replies(1): >>45030064 #
ghaff ◴[26 Aug 25 17:59 UTC] No.45030064[source]▶
Chaos manor was sort of a proto-blog. I enjoyed it well enough. As I say, Byte worked well enough as sort of extended hobbyist/nerd zine until that didn't really work as well any longer.
replies(1): >>45035417 #
1. sitkack ◴[27 Aug 25 04:19 UTC] No.45035417[source]▶
Chaos manor was <uncharitable>. Readers were being both talked at and down to. BYTE would have been better without it.