kurt@tc.fluke.COM (Kurt Guntheroth) (08/04/88)
Has anyone else noticed in the "Letters to the editor" and other sections of BYTE a certain tendency to print articles flattering to the IBMPC and unflattering to all other machines, particularly non PC-compatibles? Now I am an amiga owner, and of course the amiga is the most perfect machine in the universe and all that partisan sh*t, but I just can't believe the cheap shots Byte takes at the Amiga are purely unintentional. In fact, during the time the amiga was starting up, Byte was quite schizophrenic, with excellent and complimentary technical articles, in the same issue with nasty editorial jabs and letters to the editor containing incorrect, unchecked, unedited gripes and whines with no rebuttal from Commodore. Oh, and on the subject of editorial balance. My favorite is the "OS/2 -- Multitasking At Last" theme we're seeing recently. Maybe they don't know you could multitask on a $200 machine (RadioShack CoCo) as much as four or five years ago, or on an amiga three years ago, or run real UNIX (is SYSIII real?) six years ago. But WHY DON'T THEY KNOW? Has not one of their editors ever seen another computer than the IBMPC? I admit it. The only reason I subscribe to Byte is to read the ads and keep up on the computer market and general industry stuff. I read maybe five articles a year. But nowadays I can't even see ads for a wide variety of computers. I might as well give up.
munck@linus.UUCP (Robert Munck) (08/05/88)
Gotta agree with you. Plus they're losing Steve Ciarcia and continue
to have the old problems like Pournelle telling us how wonderful he is
and how wonderful are the products of whatever company his son happens
to be working for now. Well, they've got good company for their trip
down the toilet: Popular Electronics, the old CoCo magazine (can't even
remember its name), Electronics, most ACM publications, Apartment Life,
Look, Colliers, ... (getting a bit afield here.) Boy's Life,...
Fortunately, good new mags come along all the time too. Micro/systems,
Circuits Ink, the Victoria's Secret catalog, ...
-- Bob Munckdaveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (08/09/88)
in article <37928@linus.UUCP>, munck@linus.UUCP (Robert Munck) says: > Xref: cbmvax comp.misc:3350 comp.arch:6141 > Well, they've got good company for their trip down the toilet: Popular > Electronics, the old CoCo magazine (can't even remember its name), Electronics, > most ACM publications, Apartment Life, Look, Colliers, ... (getting a bit > afield here.) Boy's Life,... > Fortunately, good new mags come along all the time too. Micro/systems, ... Personally, I think Micro/Systems is getting ready for the flushing ceremony too. Back when it was "Micro/Systems Journal For the Advanced Computer User", it wasn't bad, if a little on the thin side. That was only last year. Now it's "Micro/Systems Journal For the PC Systems Integrator", and doesn't seem to care all that much about the advanced computer user. I guess it's not completely useless yet; I usually find an interesting article or two per issue (as opposed to 0, on the average, in today's BYTE). Dr. Dobbs is in the same category these days; it's almost useful enough to keep, but I probably wouldn't miss it if I stopped subscribing. I read Dobbs years ago when it was really good, then stopped for awhile. I started up again when it was one of the optional replacement rags for the remaining 2.5 years on my Creative Computing subscription. And it's been steadily drifting downhill. Like BYTE, it wouldn't bother me so much if I hadn't read it in it's better days. There's probably still some hope for Dr. Dobbs and Micro/Systems, though. BYTE is certainly lost for all times. > -- Bob Munck -- Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy "I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"